Thanksgiving Gratitude
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, you didn’t think I’d let this opportunity to talk about gratitude just slide by, did you?!?
Thanksgiving is literally a holiday about giving gratitude! It’s a holiday made just for us happiness seekers!1 :)
Growing up, I loved Thanksgiving. I would watch the calendar and count down the days. In the days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, I remember learning the “usual” stuff about Pilgrims, Indians, and such, but one year I remember our teacher also taught us how to initiate a gratitude session on our Thanksgiving table.
I can’t remember whether I initiated a conversation at our Thanksgiving table as our teacher had asked us to do, but what strikes me now as I think back on her request was how awkward the mere idea of expressing gratitude seemed to me. My father was a minister, so I was used to thanking God for stuff. My family prayed before every meal (including Thanksgiving, of course). I even had a prayer memorized:
God is great, God is good, Let us thank him for our food.
I didn’t say it was a complicated prayer! But it got the job done.
This simple child’s prayer was a good start on my road to giving thanks, but I needed more. Unfortunately, I had only learned to recite a scripted prayer so the words didn’t mean much to me. When my teacher asked me to share something I was grateful for — besides the food — at our Thanksgiving table, I wasn’t sure I could think of anything. Or maybe if I did, I wouldn’t pick the “right” thing. I didn’t want to fail at Thanksgiving!
Have you wondered that about your own gratitude practice? Are you worried that you might do it wrong? Or at least less effectively than you could?
Any time we start something new, we might feel anxiety. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the reason I was so nervous was because I didn’t have enough experience with gratitude. The issue wasn’t about doing it right or wrong. It was about doing it. Period.
Regardless of your own experience with giving gratitude, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to up your game in this area. You might give thanks to God, as my family taught me to do. Or you might give thanks to your own version of a Higher Power. But we need not limit expressing gratitude only to a Higher Power.
You can offer gratitude to someone, whether it be for something nice they did or maybe just for being the awesome person they are. You can offer gratitude to your dog for “being a good boy” or to your cat for not gouging your eyes out the last time you trimmed her nails. ;) You can offer thanks to flowers for being so beautiful and to bees for helping to pollinate those lovely flowers.
Last but not least, don’t forget about offering gratitude to YOURSELF! Thank your body for supporting you physically. Thank your mind for allowing you to read this. Thank your heart for opening to love, joy, and happiness.
Whether you’re just learning how to use gratitude to increase your happiness or whether it’s a tool that you carry and use throughout every day, take advantage of this Thanksgiving holiday to increase your skillfulness with gratitude.2 Every time you hear or see the word “Thanksgiving” or anything related to it (e.g., a turkey, vibrant fall colors, or family around a table), make it a trigger to express gratitude in that moment.
If we commit to observing the blessings around us, I am confident that we will find more peace, love, and joy throughout this Thanksgiving holiday.
Thank you for taking this happiness journey with me!
Are you grateful for Primrose Ponderings? Please share my work with others!
OK, I realize that Thanksgiving was probably not invented explicitly for the purpose of increasing our happiness, but I suspect that whomever invented it knew intuitively that expressing gratitude is a very good idea. ;)
If you have spare time, go back and read my previous writings on various ways to start and commit to a gratitude practice.