Gratitude

 

We have been writing daily lists of gratitude for a few years and we both agree that it has transformed the way we live.

We have noticed how much more observant we are of our surroundings; we see the beauty in each day and feel genuinely grateful for the love, warmth and support around us. We enjoy helping others and feel gratitude in our ability to do so.

We are able to remain calm in difficult situations and try to find the good, even if it is just a tiny glimmer of hope. We are more forgiving and wish only love and happiness to people who can sometimes be challenging.

At the end of our gratitude list we always add the names of 3 or more people who we feel need help – they may be going through a particularly tough time or are just plain rude...it doesn’t matter, anyone we think is in a bad place gets added to the list and we virtually send them our love and positivity.

We take it in turns to write our list - some days we just do quick one liner entries and other days, we do in depth write ups; more like full blown stories. The important thing is that it isn’t a chore - we love doing it and we always finish off with a drawing of a face. Originally we ended with a smiley face, but over time the smiley face has become various fictional characters. We both enjoy creating these little face drawings - which we name, then we think up jobs and hobbies for them. This is our evening entertainment and we gain a lot of pleasure from it!

At bedtime, when our kidlets were young - I would ask them if they could tell me everything they had done during the day and then pick out their favourite bits. They would laughingly try to remember which sock they had put on first that morning and so on, but by concentrating on the good stuff – they would then sleepily drift off happy and content. It’s a lovely way to end the day, especially if they were still wide awake after a story.

The same happens when you are grateful, especially when you get into this positive frame of mind before sleeping...Thinking of all the good in your life makes a big difference, so before you go off to bed tonight - think through your day and try to compile a list of 10 things you feel grateful for. It doesn’t need to be anything big and important; the little things count enormously because it means you are noticing the small stuff.

Let us know how it works for you.

Lots of love, Kay and Sime xx