a reflection on gratitude

Gratitude feels different in 2020. I used to wait for the big, victorious moments of life (the day I got my current job, when I filled a yoga class or workshop, when I hosted a lively dinner for friends, the day I married Jacob) and ride the wave of gratitude that followed. Gratitude used to feel like the result of big joy. 

But of course, gratitude isn’t a result – it’s a practice. And gratitude isn’t the outcome of joy, it’s the source. 

So now I practice gratitude until it aches.

I’m grateful for the daily instability that forces me to question what’s important. I’m grateful that I feel the big hurt in the world and can let empathy drive my decisions.

I’m grateful for the emotional excavation that’s happening while I’m in a tender space – the daily reckoning with old habits and old thinking patterns that I can no longer carry to fully meet today’s challenges.

I’m grateful for the people I miss who Zoom and call and text – and remind me that I can feel connection anywhere because we carry each other with us all the time.

a question for you

What hurts now – and what deeper understanding is it revealing?

I believe in the power of questions. The most pivotal changes in my life came from reflecting on a question over time, rather than solving for an answer. If this question leads you to a new insight or revelation – email me. I read every response.

a few things to try

If you have…

• 5 minutes: Open your phone, text the seventh person in your messages something you are grateful for about them
• 15 minutes: Try this gratitude meditation from Jack Kornfield 
• 50 minutes: Register for my Gratitude Journaling Workshop, hosted (free) by MUJI USA. I’ll be sharing on mindfulness, habit-formation strategies, and journaling – I’d love to see you there!

a moment of inspiration 

from Oliver Sacks’ Gratitude – 

“I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Mindfully,
Jaime