I started a new Gratitude Jar today. Thank you, dear Elizabeth, for reminding me. My first entry is “The Sun.” The jar I chose has been sitting on my desk filled about ⅛ full of sand I’ve collected from the many beaches I’ve visited…California, Long Island, The Dead Sea, Maine, Massachusetts…There is something deeply significant to me about this sand. It represents adventure. It represents the place I love the most on this planet…where land meets the sea. It represents good memories and times with people I love. It seems the perfect jar to use for re-igniting my gratitude practice.

For me, practicing gratitude is so simple yet has really changed my reality. I grew up with an ancestral story of hardship. The mantra seemed to be, “it’s not worth it unless it’s hard.” I learned this as a young child. Even then, I knew this was not the whole story. There had to be joy somewhere, right?

The times of day I need to practice gratitude the most are when I wake up in the morning, when my energy wanes in the mid-afternoon and before I fall asleep at night. These are the liminal spaces where the veil between worlds feels very thin. And, I go right to the “hard,” the feeling of doom that seems to live in my DNA. My practice is to allow it and also bring in something different…gratitude. Five things I am grateful for…something new each time. This is harder than it seems. If you practice this three times a day that’s 15 things you are grateful for every day. My sense of gratitude is challenged and also expanded as I include more and more things each day that I may never have considered before. It is quite amazing how gratitude can grow and flourish even after just a week of this practice.

Today, I am including my new gratitude jar into my practice. It will become a part of my Altar. It will be a visual reminder that gratitude exists and thrives in my life.

Won’t you join me?