4 Simple Gratitude Practices to Find Joy Even When Life Feels Heavy

Do you find yourself doomscrolling more than ever?

Does the news of what’s happening in the world negatively impact your mental state?

Do you focus more on what’s wrong, making you feel like nothing is right?

Whether you’re looking at the whole world or your corner of it, if the answer is yes, this episode is for you.

I’m talking all about the transformative power of gratitude, how it can impact what happens in your life, and giving you strategies for how to create more of it. 

Prefer the audio? Listen here.

What Is Gratitude?

Gratitude is a feeling. 

It’s being grateful for what’s right, even if everything isn’t right. 

It’s being grateful for what you have, even if you don’t have everything you want.

Gratitude is the ability to be thankful for all the blessings in your life, every single day. 

Thanks to gratitude, I’ve generally had a good attitude toward life. This has been true for decades. 

Maybe this was because my mother modeled practicing gratitude for my sisters and me early on, or because I tended to find the silver lining in situations (hello high-functioning codependency). 

Either way, I believe gratitude is a muscle, and the more we flex it, the easier it becomes to feel and cultivate.

The Transformative Power of Gratitude

There are physiological, mental, and emotional reasons to flex your gratitude muscle.

Studies show that people who are consciously and actively grateful feel better about their lives, get sick less often, experience greater happiness and less stress, and are more successful and determined.¹

This reminds me of a Wayne Dyer quote: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” 

This is so incredibly true.

Thinking and complaining about what’s wrong is stressful for our bodies. That’s why I’m inviting you to look for what’s right. 

However, I’m not advocating that you bypass what’s wrong. I’m also not talking about hyper-positivity or being in denial about things. 

But we have a choice: we can focus exclusively on what’s wrong, or find what’s right and deal with what’s wrong.

Here’s another way to think about it: humans are energetic beings. Our thoughts and feelings have vibrations. 

When you make gratitude your default position, you change and raise your vibration, allowing you to ‘hook’ similar things, because like attracts like. 

I believe that the more you are grateful for, the more the universe will send you things to be grateful for. 

The same is true for negative thoughts because we often find what we’re looking for.

We can change our vibration by using gratitude as the lens through which we see the world. It’s a powerful energetic shift.

Your Downloaded Gratitude Blueprint

Not all of us are naturally grateful or positive. Nature versus nurture means we’re all different because we have had different life experiences. 

To deepen your relationship with gratitude, think about what you may have learned about being grateful or hopeful from your family of origin.

My mother taught my sisters and me about gratitude. From an early age, she trained us to appreciate. If we passed something beautiful, she would slow the car down and say, “Look at that view,” or, “Hello, God.” 

My mother grew up in the country and has a deep appreciation for nature. She passed this love down to all of us. We all have bird feeders in our yards. I even have a bird book next to where I sit at night. 

My mother also taught us that having hot water on tap, food, heat, and clean water was a privilege. She didn’t make us feel bad or guilty about it, but we understood we were lucky to have access to these things.

We also had Fresh Air kids stay at our house in the summer, and friends who had abusive parents were welcome to live with us when needed. 

I learned to feel gratitude for what we had and to share it with others, which is a big part of my dharma and why I do what I do. 

Years ago, my husband, Vic, held different views on gratitude. He’s a first-generation American and “recovering” Catholic. 

Whenever I vocalized my gratitude, he used to say, “Shhh, don’t say it too loudly,” as if what I was grateful for would get taken away. 

He’s now much more comfortable being actively, vocally, and consciously grateful. (He’s influenced me so much, and I like to think I’ve influenced him positively, too.) 

If you can relate, know that it’s possible to change your relationship with gratitude, and it doesn’t cost you anything.

There’s No ‘Wrong’ Time For Gratitude

Given the current state of the world, it might seem like a weird time to practice gratitude.

Globally, we’ve had a rough bunch of years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be grateful or find something to be grateful for in our lives.

Gratitude uplifts me, even when I am wringing my hands about the state of the world.

I’m grateful for beautiful days, amazing views, sunsets, the wildlife around our home, my career, my birds, my dog, my family, my friends, and Vic. 

I make it a point to practice gratitude daily because the more I flex this muscle, the easier it is to find things to be grateful for. 

We can still be grateful, even with major things happening in the world.

I’m not saying to bypass, avoid, or deny the difficult challenges present. I’m suggesting we shift our focus. We can practice gratitude and honor difficult experiences. 

4 Powerful Ways to Cultivate Gratitude

Every time we practice gratitude, we build new neural pathways, almost like building a gratitude highway in your mind. This paves the way for more gratitude-related thoughts, becoming more natural and common over time. 

It’s the same with complaining. It’s just a habituated behavior we might choose to repeatedly engage in. 

If complaining is part of your nature, no shame. You don’t need to feel bad about it. You just need to commit to changing the habit.

How? Give one of these four strategies to cultivate more gratitude a try. 

Write a letter of gratitude. As my friend davidji says, who were your champions? The people in your front row, cheering you on and wanting you to win? Who has made a huge difference in your life? 

If they’re still alive, write them a letter. If they’ve passed, you can still write a letter, burn it (safely), and send it to them in the ether. 

Writing them a letter expressing your thanks can help you create gratitude within your heart, too.

I recently sent a letter of gratitude to a guidance counselor who helped me apply to college in my senior year of high school. He wasn’t even my guidance counselor, but no one else had approached me to help me through the process. I didn’t know if he realized what he did for me, and it felt good to let him know. 

Meditate. Guided meditations can help slow you down enough to consciously, mindfully, and regularly become more grateful. One of my favorite apps is Insight Timer, where I have over 15 free guided meditations.  Journal. Inside the guide, you’ll find a few gratitude journal prompts you can use daily. A simple practice many folks like is naming three things they feel grateful for at the end of the day. It doesn’t need to be complicated.  Ritualize gratitude. Every day, I’m grateful for an amazing cup of coffee. It’s a ritual: grinding the beans, enjoying the smell of it brewing, and sitting down with Vic. 

We also have a nightly ritual where we share three things we’re grateful for. Nothing is too big or small to share.

And if you live with kids, try incorporating a gratitude practice into your family’s routine! Teach your children to be grateful for their blessings and to verbalize their gratitude. Again, focus on building the habit, just as my mother did for me and my sisters. 

No matter what’s going on in your life, there are still things to be grateful for. Regardless of whether gratitude comes naturally to you, the steps in the guide will empower you to invite more of it in. 

I’m Grateful For You

I can’t talk about gratitude without mentioning the overwhelming gratitude I feel for you and everyone who reads, watches, or listens to my content. 

If you are here, you’re interested in elevating your joy and lessening your suffering. You want to have better mental health, improve your communication skills, or lessen your codependency. 

You are seeking something and willing to do the work to get it. I see all the work you’re doing, and I’m cheering you on because you’re so worth doing the work for.

Something else I’m grateful for is the community of like-minded, like-hearted, compassionate women in my membership. If you want to dive deeper into this work, I invite you to join us. You’ll get access to four calls with me each month and four of my courses (Understand and Transform Your Mother Wound, Understand and Transform Your Father Wound, Boundary Boss Bootcamp, and Real Love Revolution)! Get all the details and sign up here. I’d love to have you.

Let me know your thoughts about gratitude in the comments or on Instagram (@terricole). Does it come easily to you? Do you need to work on cultivating more of it? Which gratitude practice would you like to try? 

Have an amazing week and as always, take care of you.

¹https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier