Well, here we are the 30th Day of this month of Giving Thanks. What a wonderful experience to simply stop and be more mindful of both the small things and the big miracles that make impact in our lives on a daily basis.
To wrap it up for the tips, I came across an article about Six Habits of Highly Grateful People who
- Once in a while, they think about death and loss
- They take the time to smell the roses
- They take the good things as gifts, not birthrights (ooh good one) They’re grateful to people, not just things
- They mention the pancakes
- They thank outside the box it goes on to say, “If we’re willing and able to look…we can find a reason to feel grateful even to people who have harmed us. We can thank that boyfriend for being brave enough to end a relationship that wasn’t working; the homeless person for reminding us of our advantages and vulnerability; the boss, for forcing us to face new challenges.
I’ll admit, number 5 is hard especially when you’re in it. With that in mind I think we can all be thankful for trying times when our overcoming it becomes the reason someone else has hope. Most certainly we can be thankful for the maturing we get from the experience…
So, as I thought about this 30 day exercise and reviewed the various tips I shared throughout the month, I couldn’t help but notice how what I was thankful for aligned with my love languages assessment. My primary love language is Quality time followed closely by Acts of Service. Most of what I was grateful for involved hanging around who I deemed as quality people, eating my definition of quality food, and spending what I felt to be quality time.
I do love to eat, but I realized what made the meals special to me was the fact that someone poured their love into preparing my meal during the holidays, or that despite standing all day, perhaps on a double shift due to high turn over at the restaurant, while receiving poor treatment from ill mannered patrons, my server thought it not robbery to smile and do their best to create a great dinning experience for me. Yes even more so that I was blessed enough to pay for the convenience of someone else’s time standing in a hot kitchen so I didn’t have to, and, finally, being able to sit and have intimate conversations with the people when they had a million and one things to do, yet still made time for me, especially knowing I just wanted to rant.
I also remembered again how it was always about the little things, things like my nephews running up to me and giving me hugs and kisses or receiving a random “I love you” when I was having a “bleh” day. Or even, when I’m tripping out talking down about my imperfections like that moment when my contacts got all dry and I became irritated about having to wear them in the 1st place because who the heck wants crappy eye sight until I humbled myself and thought well, at least I can see…
Overall, I really enjoyed doing this month of thanks and gratitude and more importantly I enjoyed implementing better habits person to person, genuinely with love and appreciation.
Thank you to all who participated along with me in your own space on the web!
A very Special thank you to my best friend and accountability partner Latisha!
Until next time…
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