Ideas and Practices for A Grateful Thanksgiving

What if you discovered that living with awareness and intention, focusing on what makes you feel most alive allows you to: live longer, experience joy, inspire others, hold pain and grief with compassion, and deepen love, generosity and respect for all life?

Grateful living is way of life that does all of the above and, in so doing, contributes to a peaceful, thriving, and sustainable world – held as sacred by all.

Throughout this Thanksgiving week we invite you to explore ways to support living gratefully as a way of life, not simply something we celebrate once a year.

Enjoy A Grateful Day!

To begin, we encourage you to watch A Grateful Day, our new video below. Then try the practices that follow and reflect on the conversation starters on your own or with family and friends…

Practices to Cultivate A Truly Grateful Thanksgiving:

Take a moment each day this week to notice the sky — the changing clouds and colors. Describe what you see and experience to a friend. What new perspectives arise when you gaze at the sky?
Each day commit to looking directly into the face of another and simply smile without words. What happens?
Experiment with using only a flashlight to move through the darkness of a day/evening to truly embed appreciation for the gift of light. Consider all those who went before to make electric and battery light possible and bring to mind the millions of people around the world who don’t yet have access to electric light. How does this reflection impact you?
Write down something at the end of the day that describes how you left the day better than you found it. Take in the positive impact that you do and can have on our world.
Go for a walk and notice any natural and human-made wonders that give you a sense of “awe.” What is the impact?
Commit one month a year to begin each day with a grateful living practice that, no matter what, you will step into with an open heart.

Grateful Conversation Starters:

A fun way to work with these questions is to write them out on little pieces of paper, fold them up and put them in a bowl. Choose a time when you are gathered with others (at the end of your Thanksgiving meal perhaps), then pass the bowl around and invite folks to pick out a piece of paper and answer the question.

What am I grateful about in my life right now? Why?
What blessings does nature offer in my life?
What situation is offering me the opportunity to handle it gracefully?
What has surprised me lately?
What makes me hopeful?
When I consider a difficult situation and the impact it had on me, can I identify an aspect of the situation (or impact) that I can feel grateful about?
Who inspires me? How?
What unexpected things have brought me gratitude?
What challenging situations have brought out the best in me?
Who might I be wrong about?
What act of kindness did I notice or experience today?
What can I commit to not taking for granted from this moment forward?

Thank you for opening your eyes and heart to truly having, and contributing to, a grateful Thanksgiving week and a grateful world!

And for more ways to express gratefulness, please visit our Practice Space to send a Thanksgiving eCard, Light a Candle and respond to our Daily Question.

Please feel free to share any ideas you might have to deepen our experience and appreciation this Thanksgiving in the reflection area below…

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©had6 years ago

©had

a few ideas to maybe strengthen your appreciation/gratitude this season:
savor your meal by eating slower than normal. every bite is a gift.
give thanks before AND after the meal. you’re blessed to have food.
help clean/put away the dishes, especially if you didn’t cook.
take out the trash. cleanliness is next to Godliness. 🙂

Anonymous6 years ago

Anonymous

Great tips, Chad, thanks! Love the reminder to put out the trash! Hope you and yours have a heartful Thanksgiving!

Carol6 years ago

Carol

What a great article with life-giving ideas. I thought the gratefulness team and your readers might enjoy a poem that is in the public domain "Merry Autumn" by Paul Laurence Dunbar:
It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times...

What a great article with life-giving ideas. I thought the gratefulness team and your readers might enjoy a poem that is in the public domain “Merry Autumn” by Paul Laurence Dunbar:
It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You’ll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all around;
The sky is blue and mellow;
And e’en the grasses turn the ground
From modest green to yellow.
The seed burrs all with laughter crack
On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.
A butterfly goes winging by;
A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
Is bubbling o’er with laughter.
The ripples wimple on the rills,
Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
And laughs among the grasses.
The earth is just so full of fun
It really can’t contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
The heavens seem to rain it.
Don’t talk to me of solemn days
In autumn’s time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
And these grow slant and slender.
Why, it’s the climax of the year,—
The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into thanksgiving.

Anonymous6 years ago

Anonymous

Wonderful, thanks for this lovely poem, dear Carol!

Michael6 years ago

Michael

amazing. thank you!!

©had6 years ago
©had
a few ideas to maybe strengthen your appreciation/gratitude this season:
savor your meal by eating slower than normal. every bite is a gift.
give thanks before AND after the meal. you’re blessed to have food.
help clean/put away the dishes, especially if you didn’t cook.
take out the trash. cleanliness is next to Godliness. 🙂

3

Anonymous6 years ago
Anonymous
Great tips, Chad, thanks! Love the reminder to put out the trash! Hope you and yours have a heartful Thanksgiving!

2

Carol6 years ago
Carol
What a great article with life-giving ideas. I thought the gratefulness team and your readers might enjoy a poem that is in the public domain "Merry Autumn" by Paul Laurence Dunbar:
It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times...

What a great article with life-giving ideas. I thought the gratefulness team and your readers might enjoy a poem that is in the public domain “Merry Autumn” by Paul Laurence Dunbar:
It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o’er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught ’em;
There’s nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You’ll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all around;
The sky is blue and mellow;
And e’en the grasses turn the ground
From modest green to yellow.
The seed burrs all with laughter crack
On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.
A butterfly goes winging by;
A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
Is bubbling o’er with laughter.
The ripples wimple on the rills,
Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
And laughs among the grasses.
The earth is just so full of fun
It really can’t contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
The heavens seem to rain it.
Don’t talk to me of solemn days
In autumn’s time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
And these grow slant and slender.
Why, it’s the climax of the year,—
The highest time of living!—
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into thanksgiving.

Read More
2

Anonymous6 years ago
Anonymous
Wonderful, thanks for this lovely poem, dear Carol!

2

Michael6 years ago
Michael
amazing. thank you!!

3

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