What was your Thanksgiving like today?
Some of us had a house full of family or visiting friends, with noise and laughter and plates piled high with tasty food. It was a good day, and maybe now that you have a quiet moment you're relaxing, grateful, thinking of your blessings.
Or perhaps it was a stressful day of cooking and chaos, with the TV blaring and tempers boiling over. Maybe there wasn't a moment of peace to be found, much less anything to feel thankful for. Now you've plopped down in a chair, exhausted, staring ruefully at a sink full of dirty dishes.
For others it was a day spent trudging on city streets, with nowhere to go and nothing to eat, just trying to survive. Or it was an empty, aching day of missing loved ones or sitting in a lonely apartment, listening for the phone that never rang. On a day when we hear so much about gratitude, it can be hard to feel grateful when you're hungry or in pain.
But now it's over for another year. Now the TV has been turned off, the last goodbye waved, the leftovers tucked away. Soon we'll fall sleep after a long day, grateful to rest at last.
Tomorrow we'll be swept up by the noise and craziness of the winter holidays, and gratitude will be a word we won't hear again until next November.
It seems like we invite thankfulness in for just a day, let her sit at our dinner table, and then send her back out into the chilly night. But what if we could find a way to make her part of our lives instead? What if we could find a way to give her a little space in our time and hearts to warm our lives?
They say that taking time to be grateful, to stop and notice the good things in your life, is very good for your health. Scientists have found that it's good for our brains and our hearts. Even just taking a little time every day to write down some things we're grateful for changes our brain in lasting ways. People who take time to be grateful find they sleep better, have a more positive attitude and tend to be less anxious and depressed.
I want to do that - to take time to be more grateful. So I went looking to find what other people do. Here are a few ideas I liked:
One woman, Rachel, wrote that she puts up post-it reminders around her apartment. On her fridge: "I'm so lucky to have food to eat!" On her pill box: "I'm grateful for my meds!" On her mirror: "Another day! Lucky you!" She laughs when people visit and do a double take at her reminders. "It's a little silly, I guess, but I feel so much better since I started doing it."
Andrea started a gratitude jar. Every day she writes three good things that happened that day or things that she's grateful for and puts them in the jar. When she gets down or depressed she reads them. "It always cheers me up," she says.
At the end of the day, Jared says he takes a little time just to sit and pray. "I close my eyes and let all those blessings wash over me," he says. "We're so lucky, you know? Even when times are really hard, there's always some good if we look."
One more: Tomás carries a small stone in his pocket everywhere he goes. On it is written the words "Thank You". "Just knowing it's there reminds me to notice the good things," he says. "Every day there are so many blessings we can be grateful for."
So many blessings. The big ones: our health, our families, our friends, our pets, a home, food in the cupboards, clean water, enough money to get by. And all the small blessings, too, like a cup of hot coffee, laughing at a joke, your favorite song on the radio, a phone call from a friend.
I hope when you look back on this day, you can see some of those blessings shining. There are empty places on our shelves, to be sure, things we wish were different or wish we had, but there is so much to be grateful for when we look.
Now I think I'm off to find a nice jar and find a way to keep that gratitude alive in these busy weeks ahead. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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