Keep Those Letters Coming

Today I am grateful for the chance to talk with others about gratitude and the realization of all that I have learned and continue to learn from practicing it.

I am also grateful to be preparing a presentation for parents that has gratitude and resilience as the key focus areas. There is a growing body of research to back up the effectiveness and healthy rewards of gratitude practice. I know them from experience, but the validation is nice.

For me, practicing gratitude is about taking action. I can't just sit and think about being more grateful. I need to make conscious choices and take true action in order for the real gifts of gratitude practice to come to fruition in my life. Yes, it takes work. But I don't mind it because the dividends paid are endless.

One of the actions I take is to write gratitude letters to people I want to personally thank for the difference they have made in my life. Handwritten and mailed the old-fashioned way. I hadn't written any gratitude letters for about four months. Now, in the last month, I have written five more. That's 30 gratitude letters. It isn't the number that matters. It is the heart and thought that go into each one.

My husband Darcy got a nice note from someone the other day. This is someone he knows through his involvement at church. She has set out to send a note of thanks to someone every day for a year. Good for her! That's what I call taking action. Darcy certainly appreciated it.

If you are looking for further inspiration along these lines, I have a book to suggest. A Simple Act of Gratitude was written by John Kralik about his experiences with gratitude. At a low point in his life, he was inspired by a thank-you he received. He set out to write 365 thank you notes over the next year and his life was changed in ways he never would have imagined. It's a good read.

A full year of notes may sound daunting. I write my letters in spurts. Start with one. Who is someone you appreciate and would like to thank? Get out pen and paper and proceed.

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