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.
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.
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.
Learn the one essential skill that allows you to face any challenge with confidence, sturdiness, and inner calm.
More than a technique. It’s a game changer.
ia Sophia has arrived. This “Way of Wisdom” offers an invitation to step upon a Living Spiral Path and discover a new understanding of what it means to embody the Mystical Feminine.
For the past fifteen years I have lived and taught within the Mystical Feminine. I have sat within many circles and immersions with women as we explored how to practically and powerfully engage Feminine wisdom in everyday life.
When my daughter was in eighth grade, she and her Girl Scout troop were beginning to explore ideas for their individual Silver Award projects.
Around our dinner table, we tossed around possibilities. Nothing landed. Nothing stirred real interest. So we encouraged her to do what we have always trusted. Stay open. Listen. Pay attention to what people are talking about in the world.
Driving into Soul Sanctuary last weekend, I noticed the trees were engaged in a wild dance.
I should have paid closer attention as I got out of the car, because the wind nearly took me with it. Walking to the door, I had to lean in and brace myself for a moment just to stay upright. The cold whipped through my clothes and found every uncovered space, sharing its bone-numbing chill.
We recently had a big snow in my neck of the woods.
Everyone was hunkered down. The fridge was full, chicken soup was bubbling on the stove, and my book pile sat patiently on the coffee table. As the snow covered the neighborhood and the plows dumped fresh mounds over our carefully shoveled walk, we took turns peeking outside.
As a kid, snowstorms were pure joy.
“I think we need to be friends.”
Those were the first words out of my mouth when I introduced myself to Rev. Hilda Covington. We’d just finished a county meeting of nonprofit mental health and social service agencies. She was the presenter that month. We almost didn’t meet because Hilda arrived an hour and a half late to a two-hour meeting.
Life has a rhythm. It speeds up and slows down according to mysterious forces.
Your personal rhythm dances with the celestial bodies, seasons of the year, developmental phases, and the pulse of your Soulful evolutionary process. Living in harmony with these rhythms is in many ways hard to understand as it is a complicated and deeply personal process. Your rhythm dances with everyone’s rhythm in the grand Cosmic Dance.
