Why Gratitude?
So why are we offering a gratitude journal on a website that also talks about one of the most painful events a Daughter can experience?
I am a Daughter who lost my own Mom when I was 14 and have struggled in more ways than I can count every day since. In the 32 years since she passed, I had allowed the loss to define me, my life, my relationships and my identity. I had become a mere shell of the person I could have been and nothing like the person my Mom would have wanted for me.
Enter Gratitude.
Last year, I met someone who talked with me about a gratitude practice they included as part of their morning routine. At first, I thought it sounded a bit crazy, actually, a lot crazy.
They explained how gratitude had changed their life … so I decided to give it a try. After 32 years, I quite frankly, did not have much to lose. I started my practice by saying three things I was grateful for … in the bathroom mirror while I was getting ready for work each day. Can I just say how weird the whole thing felt that first day? Totally weird.
The funny thing is though, after a few days, I started to notice a change. I no longer woke up with the huge weight of dread because I was going into the office, I stopped complaining as much, my mind starting to feel more open and I physically felt lighter. So … I kept going. Some days I had way more than three things, some days I had less … and I kept going.
Now I can say that gratitude has quite literally pulled me out of the depths of a 32-year never-ending cycle of deep emotional pain and a repeating of the same self-destructive patterns.
Gratitude has helped me see, even when it was just for a minute, that life can be different, and I have the power to make it so.
Gratitude has helped me refocus the pain I have carried with me all these years into a new, happier way of living.
Gratitude has changed my perspective and my thoughts (a tricking-your-brain-of-sorts) and thus created deeper, more meaningful relationships with the people I care about.
Truth is, it's almost impossible to be grateful AND swirling in pain at the same time.
Gratitude has given me the freedom to move away from the loss of my Mom and to a place of being able to embrace the life she lived, the gifts she left behind and helped me see how she lives on in me.
Hence, The Embrace of Gratitude … for Daughters Who Have Lost Their Mom was born.
The Embrace of Gratitude is a practice which gives each of us a place to speak and write about the things in life we are grateful for.
Gratitude can be as simple as being grateful for the feeling of the sun kissing your cheek or as deep as being grateful for a person who has made a profound difference in your life.
The practice itself is simple ...
- Use the download link to purchase The Embrace of Gratitude 30-day practice journal.
- Each page has a different theme (or prompt).
- Use the prompt to guide you as you move into a place of gratitude in your thoughts.
- The next step is to write it down … literally. There is something about the act of writing it down that forces us to own our thoughts ... that is just so powerful.
Embracing and practicing gratitude each day (from the very small to the most profound) can change your life … just as it has changed mine.
Please join me, let’s lock arms and continue this journey together …