What does it mean to practice gratitude?

River Birch

    In the early days of gratitude studies and gratitude journals, the standard practice suggestion was to say or write two or three things you’re grateful for every morning and/or night. That’s a great start, however, it’s somewhat like admiring three lemon-yellow leaves on a fall river birch without noticing the fascinating patterns in its peeling bark, or it’s pleasing oval shape and size. Or the fact that it breathes out what we breathe in.

There’s so much more to notice and be grateful for. Brother David Steindl-Rast challenges us to notice the vastness of gratitude when he states, “Everything is a gift.” 

Really?

My building is being painted and there’s a painter in a lift spraying the walls. Every time he backs the lift up, it shrieks a back-up warning. Where’s the gift in that startling 100+ decibel noise?

 

Turns out, that back-up warning systems were invented in the US by Ed Peterson when he noticed that workers were being injured and killed by heavy equipment backing up on them. There aren’t a lot of workers being protected by the back-up signal in my courtyard, but, now when I hear that irritating sound, I think about the lives that have been saved and am grateful for it.

It’s easy to be grateful for the obviously good things in our lives: family and friends, health and success, summer days at the beach and a fuzzy puppy. The practice comes in continually noticing new things to be grateful for, scanning further and further away from our known gratitudes. 

Expressing gratitude deeper and wider is also what turns on the feel good chemicals in our bodies and makes practicing gratitude one of the most effective mindfulness practices.

Short exercise: wherever you are, turn your head and scan the room or the world around you and find one thing you’ve never said you were grateful for. 

Example: I just immediately noticed a wall outlet with two lamps plugged into it. I’ve never expressed gratitude for that outlet (or any outlet, actually) but it brings me light at night, so I am grateful for it … and for the company that made the outlet, the carpenter who installed it, the hardware store that carries it … and we could go on.

Gratitude ripples. The goodness in our life expands, slowly including everything around us, gently revealing our connection to every person, place, and thing in our world. This doesn’t happen overnight; that’s why we call it a practice.

What is something challenging in your life right now? How could you find a way to be grateful for it? Is it making you stronger, more compassionate, more insightful? Is it making you more creative about finding a way to cope with it?

If you're ready to practice gratitude, we invite you to check out Gratitude Mojo.

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral-bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

💗💗💗💗

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping (US) for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.

Wednesday Mojo: Let's Move a Mountain

Breaking Free

Moving a mountain?

It can’t be done by politicians.

It won’t be done by nations.

It can only be done by us …

ALL of us …

and it starts with gratitude.

On page 60 of Gratitude Mojo, e.e. cummings says:

“Once we believe in ourselves,

we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight,

or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

Once we believe in ourselves …

Gratitude practice is a conversation with ourselves … noticing what we’re grateful for everyday, beginning to see the big and little joys in our lives, beginning to comfort ourselves when the big and little pains come our way, beginning to recognize our authentic selves, neither saints nor demons, but humans dealing with the ups and downs of our lives.

What we are grateful for, we care for.

No one of us is big enough, strong enough, powerful enough to heal our world alone. Together, though, we can, if we believe we can, if we believe in ourselves, if care for each other and for the planet we live on.

Gratitude is the foundation of peace, of love, of healing.

If you're ready to practice gratitude, we invite you to check out Gratitude Mojo.

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral-bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

💗💗💗💗

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping (US) for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.

Wednesday Mojo: Gratitude as our teacher

Diamonds and Sea
Mojo =s the spark of life, of energy, of creativity.

Robert Holden, PhD, a British psychologist, author, and broadcaster who works in the field of positive psychology and well-being, states on page 53 of Gratitude Mojo:

"I have learned that gratitude 

is much more than just a positive attitude or a nice idea; 

it is a spiritual practice that can transform 

your perception of who you are 

and how you experience the world. 

Gratitude teaches you how to live." 

Lynne and I stop in our tracks every time we read that quote. If gratitude practice could be boiled down to one quote, that seems as close as anyone could come.

Gratitude shifts our mindsets about who we are and the world around us.

Last night I listened to a successful Asian business woman talking about life as an Asian in America. It made all of us listening sad and we talked for awhile about how we might help change the American experience for those people who don’t look like "US” ... meaning, all too often, white and middle class ... the norm.

Lots of ideas about diversity were suggested … good ideas … however, it struck me that the underlying value missing as we think about equality is gratitude. Until we become grateful for the gifts of diversity, we can’t truly honor even ourselves, since each one of us is a speck of diversity and not a cardboard cutout stereotype. We have no black or white; we are a spectrum of lighter and darker; states or nations are simply lines on a map drawn by humans, rich or poor goes beyond numbers on a balance sheet.

As Margaret Mead said, 

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. 

Just like everyone else.”

Until we honor our own uniqueness, our own bit of diversity, how can we possibly honor the uniqueness of those around us and the gifts of a multitude of perspectives and experiences? We take care of what’s important to us and gratitude helps us broaden our perspective of what’s important.

We may hate flies, but they are an important food source for birds and frogs, and the world would be a lonely place without their song.

“Gratitude teaches you how to live,” says Holden. It teaches us to appreciate ourselves and the myriad of tiny, diverse miracles around us. 

Dig deeply enough into any of the major issues of our world and you will find a lack of gratitude. Being truly grateful for everything around us is the foundation of health, happiness, harmony, honesty, honor, and how we care for our world. Being grateful for all that comes our way is not always easy, but it is always healing.

If you're ready to practice gratitude, we invite you to check out Gratitude Mojo.

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral-bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

💗💗💗💗

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping (US) for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.

Wednesday Mojo: Savor Everything!

Be happy.
Mojo =s the spark of life, of energy, of creativity.

 Savor Everything!

The wind, the rain, the warm sunshine on your face.

The smell of a baby’s neck, bubbling soup on the stove, 

   the unmistakeable aroma of wet dog.

The persistence of dandelions, the danger of high bridges, 

   the comfort of a crackling fire, the hushed embrace of falling snow.

       — Gratitude Mojo, Week 6: Optimism

Savoring is the capacity to notice, appreciate, enhance and prolong the positive experiences in your life. Gratitude practice opens you to the world around you as your senses dance with light, color, sounds, music, the taste of food, the smell of rain, and the velvety feel of a baby’s skin.

Sam Horn says, “Appreciative attention is a shortcut to awe.” It is also a way to feel more alive and joyful. It turns out that the frequency of positive experiences is a much better predictor of happiness than the intensity of those experience.

However, the world is too massive to pay attention to every detail. When we open our eyes, a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, lines and shadows engulfs us. There’s too much to pay attention to every detail, so our brains scan the environment and pick and choose what registers depending on evolutionary requirements and our own history and preferences. 

While that process is highly efficient, we can also choose to slow down and savor particularities, study things we haven’t noticed before. That study or savoring expands our world, opening us to wonder and awe.

The image above occurred as I was sitting and watching life on a creek running into Lake Almanor. I began to watch the ants scurrying through the bark crevasses of a tall cedar. Deciding to capture one with my iPhone meant sitting there for many minutes and dozens of shots, just observing them and being part of that peaceful moment.

Attention also brings funny, unexpected insights. A few days ago, a photo of a Native American man named Walks with Thunder struck me. Why don’t I have a power name, I wondered. On my walk that afternoon, I started riffing on the name Walks with Thunder … Speaks with Thunder … Thunder Woman … Making Noise Woman … and so on. I began to feel powerful, like I was making an impact on the earth. I swear I felt taller just having those words roll off my tongue as I walked.

Find something near you to explore and savor. It could be a memento on your desk, or a flower in a vase, or a thousand other things. Touch it and explore the details of it: the colors, shapes, smells, textures, as well as it’s history and how it came to be part of your life. Pay attention to how enjoying this tiny moment of attention makes you feel.

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral-bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

💗💗💗💗

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping (US) for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.

Gratitude power practice: Your Gratitude Story

 

Receiving gratitude is more powerful neurologically

than expressing gratitude.

Really?

The study that revealed this shocked us and made us rethink the advanced gratitude journal/workbook which became Gratitude Mojo.

Over the past several years neuroscience studies have reinforced the understanding of the effectiveness of ancient wisdom practices such as meditation, yoga, and gratitude. These studies have also turned a few things on their head, including finding that what we think of as the standard practice of gratitude is not the most effective way to stimulate feel good chemicals which lead to positive change.

Most of us know that giving gratitude for our lives has almost endless benefits to health, relationships, success, and resilience. Regularly being grateful for our lives and all the good things we notice creates a positive attitude of gratitude and makes us happier and more joyful. It was a surprise to find that this "normal" practice of being grateful for our lives is not as powerful as actually receiving genuine gratitude for something we’ve done for someone else.

At first this was shocking. Did it mean everything we had been writing about  as we were creating Gratitude Mojo as an advance journal/workbook for improving our lives was wrong? How could that be? After digging a little deeper, however, it turned out not to be an "either/or" but more reasonably a "both/and” that leads to more powerful insights and changes.

When we say “thank you” to someone or the world around us, it changes us; when someone says “thank you” to us in a genuine, heartfelt way, it changes us even more radically. There is, however, a challenge to this aspect of gratitude. Most of us do not save lives everyday or even help someone so dramatically that they pour out their thanks in a way that turns on our gratitude chemicals. The irregular nature of receiving significant gratitude from others seems like a barrier to building a regular gratitude practice that could transform our lives.

The bridge is stories ... gratitude stories. 

Our brains treat stories as if they were actually happening. The sports world recognized this long ago and actually spends a good deal of training time visualizing and perfecting form and style. Andrew Huberman, professor, podcaster, and neuroscientist from the Stanford University School of Medicine shares a method for integrating this high-power gratitude  through story practice, and recommends retelling ourselves this story three times a week.

How to create your gratitude story: 3 Questions

First, you need a story that touches you … where YOU are the main character and received heart-felt gratitude for something you’ve done to help another person. While it does not need to be a story of great courage or daring, the expressed gratitude does needs to touch you, and help you understand  how much what you did meant to someone else.

The story that I’ve been working with for the past year comes from Bruce (not his real name). I worked with Bruce many years ago. He was young and worked in our mail room. I was told to go to Bruce if I needed computer help, which I did, and over time, discovered that he was friendly, helpful and had a knack for understanding computers and helping others use them. Those talents weren’t essential in his mail room position and I began to suggest that he go back to school or look for a better fitting job.

Bruce and I didn’t know each other long as I wound up moving to a different city and job. However, twenty-five years later, I received a note from him telling me he had gone back to school and was now working at a job he loved working with computers. He had also married and had children. He was living the life of his dreams.

In his note, he thanked me generously for encouraging him to make this life change. His note amazed me because I had no idea that what I had said to him had even been heard, let alone encouraged him to make a huge change in his life. His note touched me deeply and when I started looking for my gratitude story, I knew this one was it.

As I’ve worked with this story over the past several months, I’ve visualized Bruce's life transformation spiraling outward, affecting not only him, but his co-workers, his family, the way he raises his children, and potentially even his grandchildren. It has reminded me of how powerful we are even when we have no recognition of how our words and our actions will affect others.

To write your own gratitude story, you just need to think of a time when someone has expressed sincere gratitude for something you’ve done for them and then briefly answer these three questions:

Who was helped?

What needed help was given?

What gratitude was expressed and how did it make you feel?

This gratitude story process is now built into Gratitude Mojo, the journal/workbook designed to help you transform your own life. However, you can add this process to whatever gratitude practice you favor by simply retelling your story three or four times a week. It only takes about a minute but can make a positive difference in your mindset and emotional state.

Kudos File:  Expressions of gratitude are precious treasures; treat them as if they were powerful and valuable artifacts ... admire them, occasionally dust them off and think about how they came to you. Protect them, revere them as part of your legacy, understand their power to change you as much as you changed the person who expressed gratitude to you.

Important: Now that you know how powerful the gratitudes you receive are, make sure you honor them when they show up. Accept them graciously and never discount them. What you did may have been simple and easy, but if those words or actions made someone’s life better, consider yourself an accidental magician and let those feelings warm your entire being.

Order Now: Gratitude Mojo ... your
transformation journey for a better life

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.

Self-awareness and the Power of Journaling

 

Week 3 of Gratitude Mojo, which is a hybrid journal/workbook with a gratitude foundation, opens with Clark Kegley’s thought:

"Journaling is (in my opinion) the number one thing 

you can do to shift into the higher version of yourself.” 

Google “journaling” and 59 million responses will pop up. Journaling is an “in thing, primarily because it is a powerful path into your inner world of emotions and thoughts. The urge to capture our life in words and images seems to be embedded in human nature, going back perhaps even to early cave paintings which may have been a form of recording life and dreams … i.e. journaling. In more modern times, journals began documenting accounting and public records, with the first known, truly modern diary being written by Samuel Pepys in 1660, when he recorded details of his life in London, including grand scenes from historic events like the Great Fire of 1666 and more intimate scenes such as quarrels with his wife.

Diary of Samuel Pepys

The therapeutic potential of reflective writing didn’t come into public awareness until the 1960s, when Dr. Ira Progoff, a psychologist in New York City, began offering workshops and classes in the use of what he called the Intensive Journal method. However, the latest boost in journaling popularity comes from neuroscience which continues to discover benefits of the process of building self-awareness through writing about our lives. As we write about our lives, our relationships, successes, failures, and fascinations, we are pulling back the curtain to see our inner world as it unfolds. 

Journaling gives us deeper insights into our thoughts, feelings, behavior and beliefs and can act as a brake on our reactions to those emotions and thoughts. Self-awareness of our inner world is considered a first step to change and growth. 

The education reformer John Dewey hits the nail on the head when he says;

"We do not learn from experience…

we learn from reflecting on experience.”

Journaling is a way to learn from our own life.

Travel Journal Dina Brodsky, New York City

No Rules ... But a few principles

A great aspect of journaling is that there is no such thing as “wrong." Few of us will ever be a Pepys or Da Vinci when it comes to journaling. And, as beautiful as art and travel journals are, that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Effectively journaling for self-exploration and discovery has no “rules”; however, it does have a few simple principles:

Tell the Truth: The purpose is to reveal your deeper truths. Strive to be as honest as possible about all your thoughts and feelings, positive and negative.

Be Brief: This is not a memoir for someone else. Capture the high points of an event or memory but push into what it reveals about yourself, why it happened, and what you can take forward.

Ask Questions: Questions open up space, and if you give yourself some time with your journal, sometimes you will get amazing answers. 

Trust First Responses: Sometimes you’ll write something that makes no sense. Stay with it; write around it; let your mind flit about and see where it lands. Often it will surprise you with new wisdom.

Journaling is a way of taking your life seriously, capturing insights, preserving memories, exploring why things happen the way they do. That does not mean that journaling has to be a deadly serious chore ... have fun with it ... doodle, color outside the lines, brighten it up with stickers, photographs, images torn out of magazines ... make it YOURS!

More about journaling.

The Art of Journaling: How To Start Journaling, Benefits of Journaling, and More

History of Journaling

4 Neuroscience-Backed Reasons to Start Journaling

Writing Can Improve Mental Health

How Journaling Can Help You in Hard Times

Self-Awareness: The Key to Taking Care of Your Mental Health and Wellbeing

This Artist’s Dazzling Travel Journals Will Inspire Your Next Trip

How is Gratitude Mojo different?

In this 26-week guided journey, you will experience

- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

 - inspiring ancient wisdom and current neuroscience with inspiration and thoughts from over 200 experts,

 - the joy of self-discovery in this spiral bound workbook, printed on 8 1/2" x 11” high quality paper with over 200 pages,

- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

 Order now ... but only if you're ready to explore 

the amazing possibilities of your own life:

Email your contact info (name, email, address) to

info@gratitudemojo.com

and we will send you a PayPal.me link  

for $59 plus $11 shipping for a total of $70.

You will be able to pay by PayPal or credit card.

(Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the US right now.)

We believe practicing gratitude with a buddy or group

is more fun and more effective ... we'd love to design 

a group practice process for your group,

Contact us at:

 info@gratitudemojo.com

Safety guarantee:

we will never sell or release your information to anyone else.