With Thanksgiving being last week, I had the opportunity to reflect on the value of gratitude and thankfulness especially in the time of COVID-19.

There are very large things that we can be grateful and thankful for such as living and being able to experience the world in whichever ways we can. It is worth mentioning that although these are large concepts seem to be common knowledge, there are many people (including myself for a long time) who take these for granted.

With this in mind, I wanted this blog to bring your attention to the less ‘obvious’ thangs that we should all be grateful for. If you are reading this, I assume that you have some form of access to a WIFI connection, electricity and a completable device of some sort. There are billions of people on our planet that don’t have access to resources such as this, can you even begin to imagine what your life would be like without technology?

Although this may not be true for everyone reading this, many of us will have a roof above our heads at night with food to eat and water to drink. These are not like the materialistic objects that we usually think of when we think of what we are thankful for, these are things that would be very easy to take for granted if we do not put ourselves in a position where we actively consider our gratitude.

So, I am going to share with you an activity that I do everyday in order to ground myself through recognizing and acknowledging what I’m grateful for. This can also be a great mindfulness exercise too!

When you do this is really up to you, but for me I do this in the morning in order to start my day in a good mindset, all I do is dedicate 5 minutes before I leave my room to start the day to create a list of all of the things I am grateful for. I always start these lists with the fact that I am alive, that I have sufficient food and water and that I have a place to call my home, I then focus on the particular things that will impact my day such as the ability to have an education on a week day or the flexibility of my schedule that allows me to sleep in on a weekend.

These lists can be made using a pen and paper if you want to create something physical, but just going through this list in your head is perfectly fine too. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to acknowledge what you are grateful for, but we need to make this a daily part of our lives. It has definitely made a difference to me, and it may not work for everyone but it is definitely worth a try!