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My Maya Angelou-Inspired, Sensory Gratitude List
(Includes a free template you can use to start your list)
What I’m about to share here is probably something you’ve heard of before, whether in a secular, spiritual, or religious context. But before I talk about this gratitude template, I want to briefly get into the inspiration behind it.
The first times I read about the activity of simply listing down the things you’re grateful for was in Maya Angelou’s Letters To My Daughter — one of my favorite books ever.
She started off that particular story by describing a panic attack that made her fear herself so much, she drove to a hospital and told the receptionist she had to talk to someone right then.
But the professional they introduced her to was a white, young man, someone she couldn’t imagine understanding the anxieties that had a chokehold on her as a single black mother. So, she sobbed miserably and left his office.
Next, Maya would describe something that made little sense to me when I first read it as a 14-year-old kid. Her friend, Wilkie, had given her a glass of gin tonic (which, again, I had no clue what that was), and she sank into a big, fat nap.
When she woke up, her friend gave her a yellow notepad and pen, and told her this:
