Practicing gratitude

Well, I know many people have said many things about gratitude so far but have you tried it out yourself? Of course everyone (or at least most people) say “thank you” a lot of times per day but do they really mean it and most importantly do they feel it?

Of course saying “thank you” is more a matter of practicing good manners, the other side might care about you meaning is honestly or not, depending on who it is and how close you are to that person.

What I really want to talk about in this blog is feeling real gratitude. I recently had a couple of gratitude experiences that I want to share with you.

2 weeks ago a very person who was like a grandfather to me all my life died. Last week I visited his funeral, it’s been a shock for my family, friends, all of us. The “interesting” thing is I didn’t really cry. There was only one evening when I cried a bit but comparing to other people in my life that died so far I didn’t really cry much. Any I kept wondering why? Am I suppressing this experience? I really don’t think so. Then I started what started to happen when I began being sad about him not being with us any more, I always drowned in gratitude. I kept on remembering all the moments we’ve shared together: Christmas evenings, birthdays, highschool diploma ceremony, graduation ceremony, my wedding, … there were so many awesome days we’ve shared together and I’m just so grateful that he was by my side my entire life until now. When my grandmother in Iran died one reason why I was sad is that I didn’t see her that much, I had many good memories with her but it obviously wasn’t the same like living in the same city. This time it’s different. I’m grateful that he had a great, long and fulfilled life and that he was always there for me. This feeling is so strong that I can barely be sad although I really miss him.

Have you had a feeling like this before? I’m starting to understand why so many people talk and write about gratitude these days, it’s a concept that many people have forgotten… or maybe they never learnt it.

Today I had a another moment of deep gratitude. My husband came come and we wanted to take a little nap. He fell asleep almost immediately, I couldn’t really sleep because I was thinking of some things that were disturbing me, little things that don’t actually matter but were still on my mind. Then I looked at him sleeping and again I got this heartwarming feeling of gratitude. I was so grateful of being able to be next to the person I love the most and being loved by this person the way I love him. I remembered that this was everything I ever wanted and that nothing matters more to me than love, love for my husband, my family, my friends. Suddenly my little problems became incredibly small and disappeared.

To my mind practicing gratitude is a great tool for becoming present in the moment and for lowering our “mental noise”. I don’t say that we shouldn’t deal with our problems and be grateful instead but if you’re honest to yourself you will admit that most “problems” we think about are random things that our mind came up with. So coming up with techniques to make the mind still and become more present is always a good idea. The more present we are the better our decisions will be. And life is all about decisions.