Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~Melodie Beattie

We have a choice, I believe, to live every day from the standpoint of scarcity or abundance. Do we focus on what is, or what isn’t? What we have or what we want? What we’ve been given, or what we have lost?

The simple power of gratitude lies in its main requirement; mindfulness. To be mindful of blessings in the midst of ordinary life is to be present and open. And to be present and open is to be primed for recognition and acceptance of even more beauty and goodness. It’s a lovely little system designed for exponential growth, and all it requires is that we shift our attention and create a habit of giving thanks for what we have, knowing that it is more than enough.

Simple, right? If only…

Exercise is good for us too, but it doesn’t mean dragging yourself out of bed at 6am to run on a treadmill becomes easier just because we know we’ll ultimately have thinner legs and a tighter ass. Sticking with the status quo, (however dissatisfying it might be) is takes far less motivation and energy than pushing ourselves through the process of change. Seriously folks, building momentum is a bitch!

Even if our habits do not serve us, we have to badly want the change before we will commit to doing the work. We think that when our life, our luck, our jobs, our financial stability improves we’ll have more to be happy about, and thus automatically be grateful. Here’s the real truth: happiness does not create gratitude, my friends, but gratitude can get us a hell of a lot closer to happy.

To further complicate matters, our culture does not set us up for gratitude. We’re primed to see life through a lens of scarcity, programmed to focus on what we lack. It’s pervasive, this attitude of have-not, want-more, need-that, if-only. Pulling ourselves away from a paradigm of discontent and shifting our focus to simple goodness, little pleasures and small moments of beauty – this requires both conscious effort and strong desire.

Calling this past year challenging would be like calling the Grand Canyon a small hole.* There have been many periods where I’ve been far too focused on simply keeping my head above water to even begin to think about personal growth and spiritual fulfillment. I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that my life was defined by my external circumstances and my internal pain. Of focusing only on what wasn’t, instead of rejoicing in what was. Quite frankly, it got rather old, and I’m more than a little bit over myself.

Elizabeth Gilbert says “You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings”. She’s right, of course, if I want it, I’ve got to work for it. Nothing, not even gratitude, is going to fall into my lap simply because I know that I need it. It is no accident that when I selected my words for 2009 I chose present, abundance, manifest and expansive. These, to me, are empowering words that speak to my desire to be present and aware and my understanding own limitless capacity. Low and behold – they also relate directly to my concept of gratitude.

And so I begin this relentless participation by starting a creative challenge called “30 Days of Gratitude” designed to bring focus back to what is. To make me search for and acknowledge what is good, what is wonderful, what is appreciated, what is beautiful, what is blessed, what is here and what is now. I’ll be posting here on my blog, on facebook and on flickr. One picture for each of the next 30 days, with words accompanying them as inspiration strikes.

And as I’ve been working on being kinder and gentler to myself, I’ll give myself permission to admit that realistically – my 30 days of gratitude might stretch over a slightly longer period of time. Stressing to make sure I hit a self-imposed deadline when life isn’t cooperating seems to run counter to the purpose of the project. And I don’t expect myself to immediately morph into a shiny-happy gratitude girl.

In meditation when your awareness drifts you are directed to bring your focus back to your breath, to follow that breath in and out. If your mind wanders, you simple bring your attention back to your breath. If it wanders 100 times, you bring it back 100 times, without judgment. And so it is with gratitude – when my mind wanders I need to simple direct it back. Yes, I’ll still sink into woe-is-me moods, and I’ll still lose perspective, and I’ll likely grumble and complain about things that aren’t really that bad. I’m human, after all; beautifully, gloriously, hopefully human.

I hope you’ll join me on this project, and create your own 30 days of gratitude. You can take photos, write poems, paint pictures, twitter your blessings – however you are inspired to share. If you do, please leave a comment with a link to your gratitude project, wherever you decide to keep it– I’ll keep a running list of people participating and post them here so others can be inspired as well.

30 Days of Gratitude on Flickr

*I’ve never been one to shy away from overused metaphors, even when they verge on melodramatic hyberbole.