Last night I taught a writing workshop for breast cancer survivors at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. One of their favorite exercises was to write a gratitude list. Do it every day, I told them. List 5 things you're grateful for. Research has shown that people who do this are happier. Listing even the tiniest things can help us be in the moment, pay attention, appreciate being alive. My list for right now:
I'm grateful for my comfy pen, a Piot G-2 07.
I'm grateful for the bird I hear tweeting outside my window.
I'm grateful there's a heater blowing on my chilly feet.
I'm grateful for today's breeze.
I'm grateful for my cup of coffee; a friend calls coffee "the black hope."
Try this exercise any time--when you're getting impatient waiting in line, for example. You'll probably be waiting in lots of lines this month. Pull out your journal, a scrap of paper. Write on the Banana Republic bag you're lugging around, carrying the shoes you volunteered to return for you daughter. Grrrrr.
Look around you, listen, touch something. And make your list. Let me know what you come up with.
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About Me
- Carol Henderson
- My goals--as a teacher, coach, and speaker--are to help others find fresh meaning in personal experience, discover their unique voices on the page, and shape their life stories into compelling nonfiction.
3 comments:
I like that, mom! I need to try making a list sometime. Love you and see you soon!
-coke
I'm grateful for my wool socks.
For my first cup of coffee.
For my dog and my cat.
For reading the morning paper in peace.
Wow...I could go on and on. When you get started with this, it's hard to stop!
I'm grateful for my eyesight - I had a detached retina a few years ago and came very close to loosing site in that eye. I'm an artist (at least a wanna be one) and you can't image what it's like to wake up every morning, sit down to draw knowing that if things had gone differently, I would be doing that. Well that was one long run on sentence. You can tell I'm not a writer. I like your blog.
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