Three Beautiful Ways to Invite Gratitude Into Our Lives

***This post was originally published on my previous blog in early 2021 🤍.

Hello!

Welcome to, or welcome back to, my home on the internet! I’m so happy and grateful you’re here ❤.

This post will share three easy and beautiful ways to invite gratitude into our days and lives. I hope you find this useful in feeling more joy and inspiration in your life. I’m also hoping it helps you become more aware of the beauty that is around us daily.

The easiest way, I think, to bring gratitude into our lives is by thinking about and acknowledging the beautiful and gratitude-bringing things and events we experience.

I know this isn’t always easy, especially if your mind tends to gravitate toward things that have been hurtful throughout the day, or in the past, or you’re feeling grumpy and crabby.

This happens to me more often than I’d like to admit. I’m not perfect, and I’m not all happy and smiles and gratitude 100% of the time. We’re all human here. However, I firmly believe joy, gratitude, being inspired by, and seeing the beauty in life are all conscious choices we need to make daily in order to experience these feelings fully.

Research Surrounding The Impact of Gratitude

Harvard Medical School shares that gratitude leads to both greater happiness and other positive emotions. Additionally, feeling grateful helps us enjoy good experiences more fully, improves and increases our health, creates strong, healthy, and lasting relationships, and aids us in overcoming obstacles and adversity. Gratitude also helps us connect to something greater than ourselves, which can lead to purpose in our lives.

That sounds great! Ready to learn more? Let’s go!

Gratitude Journaling

This is my favorite way of showing gratitude – I include gratitude journaling in my quiet time. I’ll list out at least five things I’m grateful for each morning; I’m also trying to keep track of joy-bringing and beautiful moments, events, and things that happen to me throughout the day and record them as I have time.

Gratitude Prayers

Praying helps to invite gratitude by checking in with God throughout the day, especially if you’re a believer. (I know some people who aren’t believers in God will thank the universe for the good things that happen to them.) This forces us to slow down and realize we can’t do this life on our own, and God is in control, and He wants to bless us with good, beautiful moments, events, and things. There are so many things to be grateful for.

Sometimes when I don’t slow down and acknowledge these things, or focus solely on the negative, I get stuck in a grumpy rut, which – this goes without saying! – isn’t healthy, positive, or good. It’s natural to not feel great all the time. However, I think acknowledging and focusing on a few things we’re grateful for throughout the day, such as having food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over our heads, can really change our perspective.

A Gratitude Jar

This was the very first way I kept track of what I was grateful for. I actually started doing this in college, when one of my roommates created a worry jar for me. I’m thinking she realized how much pressure I was under in college, as well as how much pressure I put on myself at the time, resulting in worry. Each day, I would write my worries on scraps of paper, and put them into the worry jar. At the end of each month, I would take out my “worry scraps” and see which ones were still relevant. Most of the time, very few of them still applied to my life, and I would pray about the ones that were still applicable.

Eventually, I turned the worry jar into a gratitude jar. I think I realized I had more to be grateful for than to worry about. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of things in life I’m working towards changing. I also definitely still worry sometimes. However, I’m realizing, that, as familiar as worrying is to me, it doesn’t make anything better or change anything for the better. It just makes the situation worse and more exaggerated than it might already be. I’ve realized gratitude is a much healthier attitude and perspective to have than worrying. This first step forward towards gratitude can help create the foundation for an attitude of being grateful for our lives.

Featured Products

***The following pictures are affiliate links. I may make a small commission if you choose to purchase something through them, and it’s an easy way to support what I do as a creator and entrepreneur. You are definitely not obligated or expected to purchase anything. However, the commissions I make through your purchases go back into this website. It helps keep it sustainable to run and continues to keep its content free for you to enjoy. I really appreciate you, all you do, and all your support ❤❤❤!

Below is a beautiful journal I used earlier this year, as well as a gratitude jar similar to one I had for a while ❤. You can also make your own gratitude jar!