Waking Gratitudes
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Rub the sleep from your eyes? Groan about your achy joints? Push the snooze button again?
Maybe you jump out of bed, anxious to start your day? If so, I’m jealous! I am not a morning person. I stay up way too late most nights1 and that leaves me feeling groggy some mornings. Usually I get restful sleep, but, even so, I don’t jump out of bed with joy.
I don’t imagine I’ll ever be a morning person, but I have found that I can ease my way into the day more smoothly if I begin my gratitude practice before I even lift my head off the pillow. Have you ever tried eliciting a grateful attitude before getting out of bed?
I call this practice Waking Gratitudes and through experimentation I’ve found that this practice works best when I make a few adjustments compared to my other gratitude practices.
First and foremost, I keep this practice very basic. I choose a statement such as “I’m still breathing!” or “I slept for eight hours” or “I have a roof over my head.” My Waking Gratitudes tend to be more simplistic than a gratitude I would write in my journal or using the “Three Blessings” Exercise.
The second thing that is different for my Waking Gratitudes is that I do repeat items — and often. Unlike my Monthly Gratitude Calendar where I try not to repeat, for my Waking Gratitudes, I actually want to repeat. There are few reasons for this:
As I already said, I’m not at my best in the morning, so I don’t want to tax my brain too much. Anything that elicits a sense of gratitude is enough, no matter how simplistic it might be.
It’s easy to take for granted things like sleep, shelter, and surviving another night. By repeating a gratitude about something that I might find trivial, I’m teaching my brain to recognize these otherwise insignificant happenings in my life.
With this particular practice, I am trying to build a habit. It’s easier to build a habit when the action or thought is similar to previous days.
One thing I am hoping to achieve with Waking Gratitudes is to build a habit that I can keep going for the rest of my life. By keeping the practice short and sweet, I’m more likely to be able to maintain this practice for the long haul.
If you’ve not tried being grateful first thing in the morning, give it a go. Experiment with it. Was your experience similar to mine? If not, how was it different?
While any gratitude practice has its merit, Waking Gratitudes has a unique and important benefit: It immediately puts us in a positive mindset for the day. When left to their own devices, our brains will gravitate toward fear, anxiety, and other energy-sucking emotions. Beginning instead with gratitude is like putting positive gas in the engine of our brain. It literally gives us fuel for a good day. :)
In my defense, Primrose Ponderings might not exist if I wasn’t such a night owl! Most of my best work happens after midnight. ;)