Gratitude: More Than Just a Cringey Trend.

Is Gratitude just one of those hip new terms that gets thrown around like confetti? Sometimes giving implications that we are ungrateful creatures blindly going about our day, which on some level could be true. We rush from place to place, scoffing our food, throwing reusable items away because they don’t “spark joy” just to replace them with another. The urgency we live with puts so much pressure on us that we literally feel the squeeze in terms of mental health problems and physical symptoms in the form of headaches and muscle tension.

Everywhere you look someone is offering us something to mask these symptoms—painkillers, sleep tea, multivitamins—you name it. This busy lifestyle is obviously not doing us any favours in terms of happiness and joy in our lives, but what if I told you that I have found that by consciously focusing on gratitude in my day, I've managed not only to reduce my stress and slow down but, most importantly, I've found more joy in each and every day without waiting for the next “exciting thing” on the calendar?

I bet you're thinking I’m running around yelling how grateful I am for everything at the top of my lungs, aren’t you? You imagine me saying how “grateful I am for your service” to the local barista instead of just saying “thank you,” or playing it positive with gratitude to the slow-moving traffic instead of feeling road rage.

Good news—I’m not being that cringey! Gratitude doesn’t need to be an extreme declaration where we look at the entire world through rose-coloured glasses so that we don’t seem ungrateful. Sometimes things are shit, and unfortunately, covering it in glitter doesn’t stop the stink. A turd is still a turd, no matter how you dress it up. So instead of focusing on gratitude for EVERYTHING around me, I intentionally focus on the things I ACTUALLY enjoy and am genuinely grateful to have in my life. (Mosquitoes are not one of them, in case you were wondering.)

If I have captured your attention now and you're still reading, here are a few ways I find useful to practice gratitude in terms of being thankful and noticing joyful moments. We’ll leave the big declarations to the sugar-coaters.

• Waking up, and instead of grabbing my phone to look at depressing world news, I use the feeling of being relaxed after sleep to notice things around my room that bring me joy.
  The art print from a local artist that hangs on the wall with its glorious colours.
  The little swan my daughter made with her hands at school on the table.
  The light flickering on the wall, dancing as the wind moves outside.
  I like to think about how much I like them and why while feeling grateful that I have the opportunity to experience them in my home.

• Taking time on a busy day to enjoy my food and/or drink. Instead of shoveling it in, I deliberately notice the colour, shape, and taste. I sip my coffee intentionally, making sure I smell, taste, and feel its warmth on my skin. We all get a lunch break (if you don’t, we’ll need to have words), so let’s slow it down and enjoy the yummy food we have prepared or bought for ourselves.
  What if you have an average lunch of soggy sandwiches? Find something else in that moment (if you can) and enjoy it. If you can’t, that’s okay too. This practice of noticing things we enjoy and being grateful for them isn’t about forcing it.

• When I’m in my car and I feel overwhelmed, I like to intentionally think about the insane fact that we are all driving around on these long roads in our own little bubbles. In our own little worlds, we can move so quickly from A to B, and we never stop to enjoy the enormity of the process. When did you last look out the window and think, “Wow, how incredible is this?” Every time I do this, it still makes me giggle to zoom out on us all in our little cars zooming about in micro-climates of our own making.

• Enjoying the sensation of stimuli on my skin—the sun, a warm breeze, soft fabric, patting a dog.
  Noticing these small moments of enjoyment and the sensation on the skin is an act of gratitude for our body's ability to provide us with joy. What’s even better about this one is that you can actively seek it out. Wear the soft clothing, step into the sun, turn on the heater, and wrap your hands around a warm mug of tea.

Noticing moments that we enjoy and being intentionally immersed in the experience is the simplest form of gratitude. It’s easy to weave into our day because it’s the correlation of two things—joy and gratitude. It’s not forced; it’s already there. Unfortunately, due to how busy life is, we don’t pay attention to it. We don’t sit in the feeling of joy and allow it to envelop us. We treat it as insignificant because it isn’t this huge, joyous event we have been longing for.

But what if we let these tiny joys be just as worthy? What if we didn’t downplay them, but instead, let them be enough? Gratitude doesn’t always have to be for the grand things—it can be for the tiny, ordinary, beautifully simple moments that make up our lives. Not every day is going to be extraordinary, but if we slow down enough, we might just realize that there is joy in the ordinary too. And that, my friends, is something worth being grateful for.