I have not kept up on my meditation and yoga this last month… I have even fallen massively behind in my book readings. The kids had their last weeks of school in May. There were field trips, socials, class parties and end of the year events – the works. I volunteered at all of it and was extremely glad I did. It was also a great time to be very involved in the kid’s school and get to know some of the moms better. However, it left me exhausted, especially because for the whole two weeks or so of this my man was on business trips. I hear he had a good time reconnecting with friends.
And of course, we are determined to cram in the Midwest before we take off. Weekends have been packed with traveling to different “must sees”. This last weekend we hit the Ribfest, the Ren Faire and Wild Water West. We still want to go camping; however, all the weekends we want to try there are supposed to be T-storms.
We have kept up – every night – on our gratitude. The kids remind us if we get hectic and forget. It has been a wonderful experience and I still highly recommend it.
What I like about our Gratitude Progress:
1. I love that at the end of the day my entire family spends a moment to remember their highlights. It is way too easy to fall into complaints about life at the dinner table and this gratitude makes us practice positive thought patterns and focus. It keeps dinner a happy place too.
2. I like hearing what a high point was for different members (you get a glimpse into their priorities or personalities).
3. We have all had days at this point when we feel very ungrateful. I know I have. It is weird to state, but forcing ourselves to be grateful on those days actually makes those days better.
4. I have noticed in myself a newer awareness or focus on the positives in those around me as well. If someone does something nice for me, to me, around me I just notice it a lot more and remember it a lot easier. This is highly important if you are likely to ruminate instead. I will post about rumination another day. Noticing the great characteristics of those around me leads to a peace of mind – the world has its good.
These are striking differences from the first couple days when we had to think up one thing we were grateful for and we all sat there looking dumb founded. To be honest there are days we fall back on the easy “given gratefuls”. It is the – “lets just get his over and eat” moment. The kids are grateful for the neighbors fairly consistently or Beezus is grateful for her video game (though she very genuinely is). Also our gratitude has turned into a daily report gratitude. I consider the daily report good for the dinner table, but would like to branch out a bit.
My new goal is to try, at least once a week, to focus our gratitude on a theme. My aim is to stretch and exercise our grateful abilities a bit. I have already tried “things we are grateful for about Daddy”. I would like to have a family theme night for each family member. Other themes will include: things we are grateful for this summer, in Sioux Falls etc.
Just like a muscle we need to stretch and build it to make it work even better!
I have a post I would like to do on Savoring this week. Time to add new happiness practices and not focus just on the old ones.
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