Starting The Day With Intentional Gratitude

So many changes occurring in the world have started to make me take a closer look at what is happening daily. Often, I worry about what I see and hear, and other times I wonder how can this be our world? When it feels like gloom and doom I have now made a choice to change my perspective. I will take a major step to make things different in my day. Instead of focusing on the negative, I will commence each day with intentional gratitude.

Intentional gratitude is taking an opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate a positive experience, person, event…that has occurred. When I sat back one day and began to reflect on this thought, it was life changing. The fast pace of the daily experience can often cause many of us to forget and overlook things. Some of these things were once very important to us. In other words, we do not always get to acknowledge or enjoy the full experience of something, because we are in a rush and feel as if we must move on to whatever is next on the agenda.

When I first began the process of acknowledging the things I was grateful for at the beginning of each day- it was amazing. It was as if a light had been turned on in a room that was too dim. At times this meant vocalizing what I was grateful for, and other times it involved applying something to paper. As I reviewed what I had listed, often I would stop in amazement. It was in these moments I could relive sometimes small things I appreciated so much but had forgotten about. At times it is the smallest of things which can bring the greatest joy to your life.

The act of remembering what you have and are grateful for has a way of putting you on track to taking the first steps to making your entire day better.

This practice is one that has put a smile on my face many days, enlightened my life with so much joy, and will increase the value of my life experience year-round.