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The Gratitude Game

November 20, 2024

November brings the expected splash of gratitude suggestions across all media sources.

Portrayed as a happy gathering around a table of plenty, Thanksgiving can be a poignant mix of appreciation, comfort, annoyance, and pain. It serves as a doorway into the holiday gathering season, inviting unresolved issues with self, family, and friends to surface.

Every holiday gathering offers a swirling cornucopia of potential for comfort and stress.

It’s important to remember that you’re sitting around the table with other human beings. Everyone bringing their perspective on life, unhealed hurts, expectations, joys, and current needs. Some put on a cheerful face while others may spew the negativity that’s eating them.

Whatever your Thanksgiving gathering or alone time looks like, why not approach it differently this year?

The Gratitude Game is a playful invitation to your inner experience.

Inspired by research which suggests gratitude is good for you if you use it effectively, this game has a few guidelines but no rules. You’re both the game master and the beneficiary so you choose how and when you play.

You’re exploring what brings you a sense of wellbeing, increased connection, and true appreciation for the good in your life.

It works better if you enter the game with an intention to increase your happiness and gratitude.

Less is more.

Studies have found that those writing only once or twice a week in a gratitude journal experienced more happiness than those writing daily. This helps interrupt the tendency to adapt to positive events quickly and succumb to a fleeting, rote sense of appreciation.

So no need to go wild with gratitude on Thanksgiving. Make room for listening, laughing, and loving.

Choose 3 reasons you appreciate someone at the table.

Best to start with people than the delicious stuffing. It’s more impactful and also may soften that old irritation you’ve brought to dinner. Whether you begin with your favorite aunt or sibling who tortured you is up to you. How did this person help you grow those positive qualities you like about yourself? Ask what you appreciate about this person and relax so the answer might arrive (and perhaps surprise you).

Take your time and savor your appreciation.

If you’re surprised by a memory or awareness, even better. Engage the positive and let it grow for a few moments. How does it feel in your body? Gratitude often gives you a warm inner feeling as a smile arrives, announcing those feel good chemicals moving through your body.

No one arrives where they are in their lives without others.

Considering the gifts you were given by those with you, as well as those who are absent, invites you to think about where you’d be without this support. Imagine if you weren’t afforded a home, food, encouraging and challenging relationships, education, or the freedom to gather in thanksgiving. Reflection upon potential absence may enhance a deeper, authentic appreciation for all you take for granted.

The Gratitude Game is a personal, internal experience.

It serves to orient you to what’s good in your life as it supports wellbeing in your body, emotions, and mind. Feel free to share some of your insights with others so they may catch warmth.

Want a twist on the gratitude journal practice?

Try mailing a handwritten note of appreciation each week. Strengthening connection while enhancing well being.

That’s a win win.

Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.

HeartWarming

News

Feeling depressed about your life or the state of the world? Research has shown that a single thoughtful act of gratitude produced an immediate 10% increase in happiness and a 35% reduction in symptoms of depression. Those effects disappear in 3 – 6 months so you’ve got to renew the effects with grateful action. That’s pretty specific, but you get the point. Consciously making thoughtful acts of appreciation lead to more happiness, less depression. Imagine if everyone in the world played this game. It begins with you.

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