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Being thankful for the long haul

It’s pretty easy to be thankful for things around Thanksgiving time. The word itself, “Thanks,” is everywhere. This reminds us to reflect on the word more frequently than usual and thus, here we are, thankful for everything for at least a couple of weeks out of the year.

Science indicates that people who acknowledge gratitude on a frequent basis experience positive emotions more frequently, sleep better, and have a stronger immune system. The big things are easy: thankfulness for health, family, enough money for bills this month, pumpkin pie, and the like.

But in the depths of March, when things haven’t been going your way, how do you find gratitude? As much as I am a positive person, I am also a realist. I realize that the world we live in is complicated and challenging. Not every day is going to be rainbows and kittens.

The first thing to consider when you are not feeling the best about your life, is to do something nice for someone else. The energy we put out into the world comes back to us. If we do good for others, eventually things will be good for us. I’ve experienced this in my own life over and over again.

When you’re in a funk, and you focus on the funk — the funk will intensify. If you are in a bad mood chances are pretty high that others will not treat you well because they will respond to your state of mind, or at best, avoid you. If you can put your funk on hold long enough to smile at a stranger, hold a door open, let someone cut in front of you at the store; all those small gestures will be returned to you in some way.

It’s also OK to acknowledge that things might not be ideal. “You know what? This situation stinks.” Acknowledgement is the first step in moving on. This is actually a trick similar to mental contrasting to build gratitude while also being realistic. This allows you to minimize threats to happiness or goal achievement by making note of what is not going right so you can move on to what is going well. The key, however, is to move past acknowledgement and focus on what is right instead of lingering on what is wrong. This is hard for some to do.

On the contrary, there are those that do not want to face what is going wrong and as a coping mechanism, create a falsified state of happiness, never really addressing major life issues. This can work to create temporary peace but at some point, all of those unacknowledged problems build an army deep within and eventually explode to wreak havoc on your life at a later point in time.

It’s important to remind ourselves about why we are fortunate. You woke up on this side of the dirt. You can see, you can breathe, you can hear, you can feel, you can sit, you can stand, you are proud of your children, your neighbors are nice; you finally cancelled that subscription that was a waste of money. Whatever it may be, you can find something small each day to be thankful for. Writing it down is a great way to keep track of your gratitude over a year’s time. A wise woman once told me to keep a gratitude journal. The directions were to just scribble down three things each day that I was thankful for, no matter how small or insignificant.

Maybe a journal doesn’t work for you. Try a chalkboard in your kitchen, or a gratitude jar (write your moments of thankfulness as they happen throughout the year and add them to the jar), or even a ‘wall of gratitude’ at your business where customers can write and share their good.

This brings us to our last point of guidance. Share and be social. While I am an introvert at heart and enjoy personal moments of reflection, isolation can have a way of compounding negativity. Share with others to build connection and put your gratitude out into the world. It can be as simple as being kind. When people see you being kind to another, they are more likely to adopt that similar behavior and extend the kindness further into the world.

So what am I thankful for? Many things! I’m thankful for what I am and for what I am not. I’m thankful that I’m not the president-elect of the United States or any of the other candidates for that matter. I am thankful for my family and that I live in Alpena. While we take a moment to pause this Thanksgiving, let’s think about how we can all make gratitude a daily habit as this is what truly makes a difference in life.

Mary Beth Stutzman’s Inspiring A-Town runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. Follow Mary Beth on Twitter @mbstutz.

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