Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord: Cultivating Gratitude
The cool faucet water runs over your hands. Your brain kicks in, and you remember to sing happy birthday (at least in your head) to ensure a 20 second wash. The soap smells especially floral and fragrant reminding you of Summertime. The towel you use to dry your hands displays worn fabric, but it is soft on your skin.
The lizard’s green body looks even more vibrant than yesterday as you gaze over your sink and out the back window.
In. Out. In. Out. Air fills your lungs. You breathe slowly, noticing the sun as it rises for the day.
This is gratitude.
“Coming in touch with our senses, is an accessible way to experience and cultivate gratitude, says Amanda Bartley, Retreat House Spirituality Center partner. “Get curious about the process, enjoying the fullness of experience, like cooking a meal or washing your hands.”
As a corporate wellness coach, Amanda spends time working with clients who are looking to form new habits. While physical fitness is at the forefront of her work, she incorporates awareness of both body and mind into her approach.
But unlike physical activity, gratitude is more of a state of mind. It is about noticing.
Many of us are still adjusting to life in a pandemic, finding new ways of being and recognizing space through a new lens as old ways fall away and new rhythms continue to emerge.
“Compared to working out and exercising, this is easy, she says. “There is such freedom in knowing that anything can be a spiritual act, and just about anything can be an act of gratefulness.”
Consider the following invitations to cultivate gratefulness in daily life:
Make Space to Begin
Start with selecting time in your day where you make room to affirm goodness and the notion of simply being alive. Whether it is awaking in the morning or going to bed at night, the idea is to celebrate and give thanks. Amanda suggests stating a mantra like thank you for another day or create one of your own. This could happen while making coffee or watering plants. Find a practice that resonates with YOU. Allow creativity to accompany you.
“It’s all about getting curious,” says Amanda. Start to wonder about your surroundings.”
Prayer
When ready, think about pausing throughout the day, taking time to notice the Holy. The Daily Examen is part of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed to help people deepen their relationship with God. Lunchtime Examen, Pray As You Go Examen as well as the Consciousness Examen each provide frameworks for this type of prayer.
To begin, experiment with one of the above examens or try implementing this evening examen:
1. Become aware of God’s presence
2. Review the day with gratitude
3. Pay attention to your emotions
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it
5. Look toward tomorrow
Awareness
It takes stopping, looking and listening to develop a sense of gratitude. It takes conscience awareness. Amanda reminds us that incorporating new practices into our life takes discipline and recommends scheduling time each day on our calendar reminding us to take just one or two minutes to name or write down one thing that brings you joy.
“Take time to notice when your moods are down,” she shares. “It is important to remember that any shift we desire in our life, usually takes work. The same is true of getting better and noticing things to be grateful for.”
When asked how she helps to make a shift when she is feeling stuck in a low place, Amanda points to her face as the corners of her mouth begin to turn up. Just smile. And, there’s even research to back up this feel good tactic.
“As seekers, do whatever it is that resonates with you, Amanda says. Don’t be afraid. It is about finding freedom in your own space.”
Community
Find a way to meet with others where you can share and meditate on moments of gratitude. Discussing grateful living in a group can foster additional connection to one another, the Divine and the world.
Each month, Amanda hosts a Gratefulness Gathering, at Retreat House, where participants get together in person, now virtually, to ask questions and reflect.
Gratefulness Gathering, is part of A Network for Grateful Living, a global organization offering online and community-based educational programs and practices which inspire and guide a commitment to grateful living, and catalyze the transformative power of personal and societal responsibility.
Join Retreat House for our next Gratefulness Gathering by signing up here. If you’re interested in hosting your own gathering, check out this link.
Or, find a Gratefulness Gathering in your local community.
“Now more than ever we as people need to be listened to, says Amanda. Grafetulness Gatherings are a way to do this. Hearing others is...it’s divine.”
Obeying Impulse, a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Gratefulness Gathering materials for June’s Cultivating Gratitude curriculum
The world exists just fine without
our appreciation. It is not for us
that the dandelions bloom in tides of yellow
across the valley floor. It is not for us
that the elk stream in a slow brown current
before they disappear into the Englemann spruce.
And then there are the tiny empires
of grasshoppers, ants and bees—
and the underground realms of prairie dogs
and worms and rhizomes and moles—
so much of the world we never see.
And still, this drive toward gratitude.
Still this tug to pull over the car and step out,
this impulse to offer the world my attention.
As if being very still were as vital to
the moment as the scurry and swerve,
scamper and stride. As perhaps it is.
An additional resource for cultivating gratitude:
Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life by Carol Ann Smith provides a companion for reflection with questions, suggestions for prayer and excerpts from scripture and the Ignation Exercises helping guide the reader through everyday life.
In addition to leading monthly Gratefulness Gatherings at Retreat House, Amanda Bartley currently oversees the Corporate Wellness program for Capital One. She is also enrolled in Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University where she is training to become a Spiritual Director. Reach out to her here.
The blog post was originally published for Retreat House Spirituality Center.