Day 30: Thanks-Living

Hello Team Gratitude,

I am still recovering from my turkey-coma, but WOW, yesterday was such a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving! I hope that you too had a wonderful celebration of gratitude. 

Today is Day 30 of our 30 day Month of Gratitude Challenge.  In wrapping up this amazing journey, I again want to thank all of you for your friendship and support.  Team Gratitude started with just me and my crazy idea of challenging myself to be more grateful, and it ended with over 80 people joined together in living out an “attitude of gratitude”.  What a blessing! There have been some real challenges in my life recently, but my grateful heart over the past four weeks has helped me in ways that I never dreamed possible.  I hope that your heart has been filled with gratitude and peace throughout this journey as well.

I recently heard this quote, “Thanksgiving is one day, Thanks-Living is all year long.” As we go forward, I challenge all of us to live a life of thanks and gratitude everyday, embracing the concept of “Thanks-Living”.   Keep writing in your gratitude journal if and when you can.  Continue seeking ways to compliment instead of complain. Maintain your words of encouragement for yourself and others.  Stay focused on your blessings.  And continue to look at life with a grateful heart.  “Thanks-Living” begins today and never has to end! Live it, love it, embrace it, trust it, grow in it, and be changed by it: THANKS-LIVING is everyday!

Several of you have asked me if I will continue to send out some uplifting messages after our 30 days have ended.  In an effort to continue my own Thanks-Living and hopefully encourage yours, I will send out periodic messages to the Team when inspiration hits me.  It will not be every day, but hopefully a few times a month if it is ok with you.

I also wanted to throw an idea out to all of you on Team Gratitude…. If anyone feels that this journey has created in you a grateful heart that you want to share with others, I would love to have a group of Team Gratitude Co-Authors.  Do you feel a calling to write or simply share your gratitude with others on the team?  If so, send me a message, and I would love to create a mini-team of inspirational co-authors who can share their blessings with the team throughout our year of Thanks-Living. 

I will continue to pray for all of you and give thanks daily for the amazing family and friends in my life! May today and everyday be a beautiful and blessed day of “Thanks-Living”!

Your truly grateful friend,

Amy

Day 29: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving Team Gratitude!

May your day be filled with sincere giving of thanks and continual counting of blessings!  Thank you all for joining me on the journey of gratitude over these last four weeks.  I have learned so much and my heart has been opened to the true gift of gratitude.  Tomorrow will be day 30 of our journey, our wrap up day for our month of gratitude, but for today, I simply want to say THANK YOU to all of you for your friendship, support, and dedication to a grateful life!

As you count your blessings today, please read over this list of often overlooked blessings (thank you Team Gratitude member Eva for sharing this with us):

50 Often Overlooked Blessings

By Sarah Ban Breathnach

Your health and the health of those you love
The kindness of strangers

Answered prayers
The warmth and security of home

The sound of raindrops on your roof at night

Rediscovering old family photos
An unexpected compliment
Not having to cook tonight

Catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and delighting in what you see

An uninterrupted night’s sleep
An afternoon to do as you please
Witnessing the birth of new life
Holding your child in your arms
Watching the sunset
Meeting a kindred spirit
Hearing a piece of music that instantly touches your soul

Sinking into a warm, softly scented bath after a stressful day
Holding hands
Taking a nap

Successfully hailing a cab in rush hour
Laughing so hard, you can't catch your breath and your sides ache

Finding a parking space exactly when you need one
Bringing joy, happiness, and comfort to another person or creature

Feeling the presence of the Spirit in your life
Friendship that endures and thrives despite the obstacles of time and distance
Wisdom gleaned through life experiences
Reading a book that changes your life
The first morsel of your favorite comfort food
Savoring the scents of life (flowers, food, the earth, your child's hair)

Sharing the holidays with people you really want to be with
Easily switching carpool days
The fresh feeling that immediately comes after a shower and washing your hair
Finding, having and wearing something that makes you feel special
The sense of relief throwing stuff out brings

Waking up to a perfectly beautiful day for a planned outdoor event
The person who believed in you when you weren't able to believe in yourself
A fortune cookie with just the right message
The moment you are able to distinguish between your needs and your wants
Air-conditioning on an excruciatingly hot and humid day
Being upgraded to first class
Hearing the words, "I love you"
When the repair bill is less than you'd expected
Perfect timing

Friends and family who can both truly rejoice with you and console in times of sorrow

Fitting into last year's clothes
Working with people you enjoy being around

Sleeping on the perfect pillow
Hearing the laughter of children

Faith. Faith in a spirit possessing greater strength, wisdom, power and love than you do. Faith in the ultimate goodness of Life. Faith in yourself. Faith that as you seek, you will find.

The bond of friendship that protects, nurtures, inspires, and comforts

Wishing you many blessings on this beautiful day of thanks!

Your grateful friend,

Amy

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm 107:1 (NIV)

Day 28: Bring the “Thanks” to Your Thanksgiving

Hello Team Gratitude,

Only one more day until Thanksgiving!  Wow, this month has just flown by.  As many of us are baking pies, mashing potatoes, and stuffing turkeys tomorrow, let us not forgot to bring the “thanks” into our Thanksgiving celebration.  The following are some fun ideas to make THANKS our priority for the day:

·         Prepare a Thanksgiving offering to give to a needy family or one of your favorite charities or work at a soup kitchen for a few hours.

·         Put on your own Thanksgiving Day parade or "pilgrim play" with family or friends, acting out reasons why you are thankful.

·         Write a Thanksgiving prayer or poem as a family and share it before dinner.

·         Make a festive “giving thanks” centerpiece for your table. Have everyone write what they are thankful for on pieces of paper shaped likes leaves, feathers, pumpkins, or apples. Then place the thankful cards into the centerpiece.    

·         Write a sincere note of gratitude to the members of your family or friends attending the dinner.  Place the note next to their plate or simply hand it to them and tell them “thank you”.   

·         Make thankful wine glass tags. Cut out leaf-shapes onto fall-color papers and punch a hole at the base of each leaf. Ask guests to pick a leaf and write a word or short phrase describing something they're thankful for. Attach leaves to the wineglass stems using ribbon or raffia or twist ties. This activity also ensures that guests don’t get their wine glasses mixed up.    

·         Give everyone in the family a large piece of paper and ask them to decorate their own placemat, writing all of the reasons why they are grateful this Thanksgiving. 

·         Go around the Thanksgiving table during dinner and ask everyone to express several reasons why they are grateful. Make sure that everyone gets to speak and that everyone else listens.   

·         Pass out cards to everyone and have them write down one or two things that they are thankful for.  Then collect the cards and put them in a bowl.  Pass the bowl around and have someone draw out a card and read it out load, and then try to guess who wrote it. Pass the bowl until everyone’s card has been read and guessed.  It’s a fun way to get the entire table involved in giving and guessing gratitude.    

·         Ask everyone to recall a past favorite Thanksgiving memory.

·         Give a heartfelt hug of gratitude to the person or people who prepared your wonderful meal!

I pray that all of you have a truly blessed Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow and that amidst the turkey, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes, we can all take time to both give and live out our thankfulness. 

Your thankful friend,

Amy

Day 27: Pass the Gratitude, Please!

Hello Team Gratitude,

The following article titled “Pass the Gratitude: Recipe for a Happy Thanksgiving” was published just yesterday by Dr. Glenn D. Braunstein, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai.  Medical evidence overwhelmingly supports the benefits of gratitude on our overall health, optimism, alertness, and even sleep. After reading this article, I am again so grateful to all of you for joining me on this journey of gratitude over the past four weeks!

Please click and read this enlightening article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-d-braunstein-md/gratitude-health_b_2131450.html

On Thanksgiving Day (and every day), I am going to have an extra helping of gratitude on my plate!

Your grateful friend,

Amy

Day 26: Gratitude Quotes

Hello Team Gratitude,

Turkey countdown… 3 days!  Here are some great gratitude quotes as we prepare our hearts for Thanksgiving. 

 Gratitude Quotes:

v  "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust

v  "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." - Thornton Wilder

v  “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy

v  “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." – Epictetus

v  “Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues, but the parent of all others.” Cicero

I hope that you are still writing in your gratitude journal.  If you have stopped or never actually started, give it a chance and see what beautiful miracles arise from your writing and reflecting on the many glorious gifts in your life.  

Your grateful friend,

Amy

Just for laughs…

Day 25: Snoopy on Gratitude

Hello Team Gratitude,

Let the countdown begin… 4 days 'till Thanksgiving!  This brought a smile to my face today:

“Be grateful for who you are. Be grateful for who you are to become. Be grateful for the boulders placed upon your path. For they are not obstacles but stepping stones on your journey of self-realization.”  ~Joe Keane

Your grateful friend,

Amy

Day 24: Today is a Gift, Respond Gratefully

Happy Saturday Team Gratitude,

“Today is a gift. It's the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day of your life, and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well”. Brother David Steindl-Rast

This beautiful video was sent in by a wonderful Team Gratitude member, my Mom (thank you Mom!).  Please take the time to watch it today or over the weekend.  It is really beautiful and the message is truly moving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=nj2ofrX7jAk

Make today a “good day”! Be grateful for the gift of today!

Your thankful friend,

Amy