There is a tidal wave of suggestions to express gratitude all around the world.
Never has expressing gratitude been so emphasized in our lifetime. Our social media feed is full of posts, memes, articles explaining the importance and benefits of gratitude.
There is a significant emphasis on cultivating an attitude of gratitude and counting your blessings.
We are at the beginning of 2022.The past two years have been tough and frustrating for most of the people around the world. To say pandemic brought unpleasant situations and feelings is an enormous understatement.
Yet somehow, we humans have also been woken up by it. It brought us to a place where we all started desperately missing and seeking the simple pleasures in our lives.
The little things that we all took for granted: simple pleasures like going out for a walk with a friend, eating out in a restaurant, watching a movie in a theatre, standing in a line to get coffee, hugging a loved one etc.
Amidst the chaos I asked myself an essential question – What can I learn from my difficult experience during the pandemic?
The answer that emerged from within was: to learn the value of my relationship with myself, my loved ones as well as my relationship with people around me.
I realized the value of my mental, physical and emotional health.
I felt the need to express gratitude for the little gestures my loved ones do for me. I found myself feeling appreciation for the connections I have with people around me. I vowed that I will begin to show appreciation to myself and the people in my life much more once everything came back to normal.
Political leaders all over the world address being grateful for the people who kept the wheels moving while the rest of the population could safely practice social distancing. I realized how much these people impact our lives. These people have always been there and they make our lives easier and better.
I have come to acknowledge the paramount role of medical professionals, caregivers, teachers, delivery people, sanitation workers, flight crews and so many other people who help us in our daily lives.
I now consciously realize the importance of people working at the grocery stores who make sure we get our food supplies in a timely manner. How many times did we genuinely care for the delivery person who was out in the extreme cold or heat doing their work diligently? I now appreciate the truck drivers who work day and night to get us whatever we ordered online.
I vow to be grateful and show appreciation in little ways for all the people who help us daily.
I learnt that showing appreciation by doing little acts of kindness go a long way. Some ways in which I showed my appreciation was: taking good care of my mental and physical health, surprising my loved ones with a hand written note saying Thank you, giving sweets to the person bagging my groceries, giving genuine compliments to strangers I interact with.
In some ways our world has changed altogether. I hope most of us ask ourselves the question ‘What can I learn from my difficult experience during the pandemic?’
And amongst so many other valuable things we can learn to be grateful, which in my experience is the greatest lesson of all time: to find something to be grateful for even in the face of adversity.
I am deeply grateful and hopeful that we as a society will choose to focus on gratitude and appreciation more and more openly.
Happiness & Gratitude go hand in hand.
In my Happiness Coaching Sessions I work with my clients to uncover and remove thinking patterns that are not allowing gratitude to flow freely in their lives, thus making them feel unhappy and unfulfilled.
Go to my Coaching tab to know more about what I do!
