What if…We Remember to be Grateful?

It’s effortless to complain, isn’t it? 😞Sometimes, that grumbling reaction is the first one to the surface. As the saying goes- been there, done that. Some days seem to have a cloud that just won’t lift- and it almost feels right to complain. 👎Almost.

That could be said for the past couple of months. I hear lots of 😡grumbling lately, and it’s getting old. Is it really that difficult to practice 💖gratitude versus griping? I don’t think so. It’s all about making an effort. We have to make the decision to focus on the 🌈rainbow over the dark cloud.

There’s this great store in Florida called Sugarboo & Co. that I absolutely love. (They also have a website if you’re interested). One section of the wall in the shop is dedicated to wooden signs with 🌻positive quotes that they call Poetry Sticks. I’m a sucker for positive quotes, so I gravitate towards that wall.

Mia knew that I loved those sticks. She chose one for me that says, “Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn.”😊

Brilliant, isn’t it?

If we moan and whine, those corners of our mouths are 😞frowning. When we practice gratitude, we’re sending out those smiles. Even under a 😷mask, you can see a smile in the crinkles around our eyes. We can sense it from the overall body language. When we are looking for those opportunities to show 💖gratitude, it radiates from our souls.

School officially ended last week. Any teacher will tell you that the ending to this year didn’t feel right. The conclusion to a 📚school year is all about 🎉celebrating the learning and relationships. It’s one of those times in life that is both 😀happy and 😢sad. I was feeling the sadness a bit stronger when I thought about my 8th-graders. Those guys are moving onto the high school, and I’ve had most of them in my classroom every day since they were in 6th-grade. To say that we built 💞connections would be an understatement.

That’s why I decided to show 💖gratitude for the fact that they were my students. I wrote each and every one of them a personal email- just my way of letting them know that I was 💖grateful to share my classroom with them. I could have lamented the way the year ended. I could have groaned about the fact that some of them didn’t do any of the 📝work during our last quarter of distance learning.

I chose not to 😞complain about our ending. I decided to be 💖grateful for the time we had together.

Expressing gratitude doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. My daughter and her roommate showed appreciation to their friends in Florida by baking 🍪goodie bags and delivering them to 🏠porches during their lockdown. We’re grateful that our Mama is in a safe environment with good 💞friends, fun activities, delicious 🍛food, and lots of 😂laughter rather than alone at this time. Don’t freak out that we haven’t had a severe outbreak of COVID-19 in our area, thinking that we didn’t really need to take the precautions. Be 💖grateful that we weren’t like New York.

When it comes to showing 💖gratitude, don’t go for the obvious. Surprise someone by spreading 🌞sunshine when it’s least expected. Send notes in the 📬mail for no reason at all- other than to let someone know that you’re 💖grateful to have them in your life. Leave sticky notes on the bathroom mirror. Tuck a heartfelt 📝letter under a pillow, to be discovered at bedtime. Throw out some 🔥compliments- the more, the better! Clean the whole house when your parent isn’t home (nice 🎉surprise, AGS!). Say THANK YOU every single time someone helps you- no matter how small the gesture seems. Be present when you’re with someone. 😀Smile!

Henry Winkler- aka The Fonz (for my generation)- was talking about positivity and feeling 💖grateful on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. “Don’t put a period on the end of a negative thought,” he said. “Don’t finish a negative thought; put it out of your mind. Let a ✨positive thought come in.” I love that, don’t you? He said that his positive thought involves bundt cake! That’s all it takes to turn his grumbling into gratitude.

My positive thoughts include 🌞sunshine and 🍧ice cream- not necessarily in that order.

Positivity and gratitude go hand in hand. If we can turn our minds to that bundt cake, feeling grateful isn’t far behind.

What if…we remember to be 💖grateful? It’s not that difficult, you know. Which way are the corners of your mouth turning?😊