Why »Thank You« is NOT ENOUGH.
When someone does a nice thing for us, we usually feel at least a bit of gratitude. To express it, we say »thank you«. More often than not, we move on, throwing further positivity into the cosmic wind... We still answer to our animal roots and carry darkened interpretations of events with us to shield us from potential pain. By constantly protecting ourselves from external danger, we’re more prone to pay attention to the negatives. Positivity on the other hand, is harder to spot and almost impossible to hold on to. My own thankfulness was a wasted potential throughout most of my life. I carried and functioned almost entirely through negatives: self-criticism, expectations, jealousy...
Without a mindful intervention, we’re all victims to our nature.
In a rather difficult moment in my life, when I felt as though negativity had engulfed all the smiles I could conjure up, I gave up. I stopped fighting against those overwhelming feelings. Through a series of incidents that I now understand as synchronicity, I stumbled upon a tool to produce positivity. I embraced it wholeheartedly and in return, it helps me find balance. The tool is to WRITE DOWN 5 THINGS I’M GRATEFUL FOR EVERY EVENING. Usually, it’s 5 short statements, like: »I’m thankful for my morning tea«, »I’m thankful for the smell of summer rain« or »I’m thankful for tomorrows« (ba-dum-tss). Yes, it is as silly as it sounds, but it helped me rediscover my lost smiles nonetheless. 🤷♂️
We all have a harder time to hold on to the positive than the negative.
And that’s ok.
These small activities help me keep in touch with positivity regularly:
1️⃣ I write down 5 things I’m grateful for every evening.
Focusing on what we’re thankful for »forces« us to habitually re-live the feeling of gratitude.
By feeling something more often, we re-program ourselves so that the feeling is more accessible.
2️⃣ Sometimes, I really need to »think« to find something to be grateful for.
Things to be grateful for aren’t always apparent. So sometimes what we find can seem silly.
Silly is good - it’s usually accompanied by a smile and a re-awakened kindness towards self.
3️⃣ Every 2-3 months, I sit down and go through the past entries.
Reviews reminds us that there’s a ton of things in our lives that we feel thankful for.
We also remember that sometimes we can be fun and silly.
This lets our guard down and sparks up kindness towards self and others.
We tend to forget, so it’s important to have things written down. Upon later reviews, we usually find how some entries tell stories - stories that can prove us wrong whenever we’re feeling down. In those stories, a »thank you« to a person that did a nice thing for us is never just a »thank you« - it’s a driving force towards further smiles and positivity that can be shared with others. 🙏
Today, I’m grateful for YOU. 👋