Gratitude Brings Peace #WorldGratitudeDay

Today, September 21, is World Gratitude Day. It is also International Day of Peace. Rather a nice combination, considering that Gratitude brings immense peace.

Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness. ~Author Unknown

I am quite thrilled that September is the designated month for World Gratitude Day, Peace, Healthy Aging, Heart Health, and awareness of Fruits and Veggies, Suicide Prevention, Whole Grains, Yoga, Alzheimer’s, Cholesterol education, Food safety and a whole lot of other important topics. September is my birthday month and I think it is a good time of year to take stock, cultivate healthy habits and generally look forward to the next hundred and one days before we meet the New Year.

I generally balk at making resolutions because then I feel the pressure, but this year, I think I will. My perspective of life is different from what it was two months ago and now is a good time as any to resolve to make the coming days and years as happy as I possibly can.

So how shall we celebrate World Gratitude Day? For my part, here’s what I am doing.

Happiness is DIY

When the day dawns tomorrow, we’ll have exactly 100 days left for January 1, 2016 and I plan to start the 100 days of happiness practice. With a difference, of course. Each day I’ll take a pic – new or one that I’ve already clicked and write a few words of happiness and gratitude. On December 31, I want to create an ebook from this. Would you join me? It will be fun. Also, great writing practice!

Invitation to participate in the ebook “Collecting Smiles”

I am grateful for the wonderful response to an idea I presented to my community. This year, I’d like to celebrate my birthday (27th September) with an ebook, with the theme “Collecting Smiles”, compiling positive posts from blogger friends. I requested them to send me an existing post from their blog, one that they felt proud to write and one that would make the reader smile and I am loving the response.

Would you like to join me? 

Email me at vidya at vidyasury dot com – with an MS Word doc that contains your post (just copy paste it into the doc from your blog, images and all, add your photo and a three line bio) right away, or latest by tomorrow. I’ve begun to work on the ebook and plan to present it on Sept 27.

♥

I am also celebrating World Gratitude Day by feeling grateful that I raised a grateful child. I started him off on this Happiness Jar experiment several years ago. One day, he asked me, isn’t gratitude the same as happiness? Since I didn’t have a great answer ready to his question, I just said yes. And he continued to write little notes of gratitude and put them in the jar. I was dusting his desk today and on impulse, I opened the jar. When the lid came off the papers spilled out. Obviously it had never occurred to him to make space in it or use another jar. The very thought of that made me smile and I sat down to read, happily distracted.

Do not take anything for granted — not one smile or one person or one rainbow or one breath, or one night in your cozy bed.  Terri Guillemets

There is research to prove the health benefits of gratitude both for adults and children. I came across this great infographic that describes the nine steps to start a gratitude journal, which is one of the best ways to get into the habit.

1. Grab a journal.Nothing fancy – just something to write in everyday.
2. Start a routine. Write a specific number of things you’re grateful for each day – do it at the same time every day.
3. Start simple. Write down things you experience on a daily basis – for example, waking up, eating breakfast, your clothes. Keep it simple.
4. Describe your feelings about the things you list
5. Figure out your talents. What unique abilities do you have? Are you talented at making people feel better? Writing? Painting?
6. Memories and situations. What memories have made you happy? Write about them.
7. People. Write about the people you care about in your life and how they make you feel.
8. Your possessions. Think of what you are grateful to have.
9. Think positive. When you practice gratitude with positive thinking, it will make it easy to get into the habit of writing your gratitude journal.

How are you celebrating World Gratitude Day?

P.S.: The Gratitude Circle blog hop will be live on Thursday, September 24 – please do join us.