I keep a little notebook by my bed and every night I write down five things for which I'm feeling grateful. Right now I have a nasty cold/fever/blech and so tonight I imagine I'll write that I'm grateful for cozy beds, and hot tea, and the sunshine that we had today. I find that doing this 2-minute exercise really helps me think back over my day and puts me in a good frame of mind before I sleep.
I also suggest you visit this website:
GRATEFULNESS.ORG - A Network for Grateful Living. It was started by Brother David Steindl-Rast. He says, "Happiness is not what makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us happy." He has this cool practice of picking a gratitude theme for each day. So if his theme for the day is clouds, every time he saw clouds, he'd be reminded to be fully present in the moment, and to be grateful. I love this exercise, because you can choose anything to call you back to gratitude--the sound of a phone ringing, a bird chirping, sunlight streaming through a window, whatever.
I have found over the years that the more aware I am of the blessings around me--whether it's the sunshine, or our goofy dog, or the fact that we have food and shelter (don't most of us take these two things for granted? try being consciously grateful for them!), or the cats purring around me while I'm lying here coughing my head off--the more my gratitude expands. It's amazing. I find myself being, if not grateful for the weeds in the garden, grateful that I'm agile enough to bend over and pull them out. And grateful that we have a garden. I wish I had found this attitude at a much younger age.
Looks as if I've created yet another long-winded post. I just want to add that I'm currently reading a book titled "Happy for no Reason," by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline. It is stuffed with exercises for increasing your happiness, peace and gratitude. It just came out in paperback, so hardback copies are going at sale prices--for which I am grateful!
