Every day, we can find reasons to be grateful. We can consider our health, family, friends, our environment. With the coronavirus pandemic, there is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. You might be tempted to succumb to this, but you can choose to combat it to some extent by practicing gratefulness.
Since starting The Science of Well-being course a few months ago, I’ve been practising gratefulness almost every day. The habit of writing down the things that I am grateful for makes me more attentive to the good things that happen in my life. One of the things I’ve noticed since being under lockdown for coronavirus is that every day has been beautiful. It has been sunny and I’ve been enjoying going for a walk every morning. I am grateful for waking up to another day every morning.
Why Practice Gratefulness
There are lots of reasons to practice gratefulness. You can improve your physical, psychological and social health. Let’s listen to Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, with his expert advice on finding ways to be grateful and using gratefulness to overcome fear:
David Steindl-Rast provides some advice to live by:
If you’re grateful, you’re not fearful, and if you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. If you’re grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not out of a sense of scarcity and are willing to share
This resonates with me. What are three things that you can be grateful for right this minute?
During April, I’ve participated in the writing prompts challenge from WordPress.com. This is the last post in the streak. Find the prompts here.
That’s lovely what you said about every day was beautiful and that you were happy to be alive. And I had no idea there was another happiness course online, I just signed up with another one. We’ll have to compare notes down the line!
Is the one you signed up the Happiness one from UC Berkeley? I saw they were offering one but didn’t sign up as I had just finished the other one. Enjoy the course. I’m curious to find out your experience of it.