Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that we spend in gratitude for all the graces we have realized in this life so far. I am on a campaign to extend that expression to the other 364 days. It is a habit that anyone can form, and an embodiment that we all can easily adopt. Small but daily changes will manifest this feeling within our hearts. By starting small, we are building the blocks of change necessary to achieve this goal.
Famed American author of self-help books, Melody Beattie, describes this approach beautifully.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have in enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timeing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude make sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie
With the holiday season upon us where the giving of gifts is at the center, I hope we can begin by turning this very day into a day where we start to live with an expanded grateful heart. By filling today’s hours with the feelings of gratitude that we felt during our Thanksgiving, we will surely create a more loving environment for our neighbors, friends and family.
And when tomorrow dawns, I hope that feeling lingers still.