Mindful Gratitude Exercise #1: What Are You Mindful Of and Grateful For Right Now?

Look around you and tune in to all your senses.  What do you notice?  How do the things you notice inspire gratitude in you?

Here are my answers:

Things I'm Mindful of Right Now

There's a constant hum coming from the area of the garage, behind me and to my left.

The sound as I strike each key on this keyboard from the 2000's...you know, the loud ones.

The teenager playing video games in the other room has fallen silent.

The white and orange and gray colors dominating the page I'm currently on.

My journal, open in front of me, beckoning me to finish my To Do List from three days ago.

The twenty or so old lottery tickets whose numbers I just checked for a friend of mine yesterday, to see if he won anything.  (He won $2!)

An Eastwood Clinics business card, sitting on the desk in front of me, a little to the right, on top of my wooden coaster.

A little discomfort in my right booty bone, and a little in my left knee, due to the awkward position I'm sitting in at the moment.

The brand new bag of barbecue Baked Lays in the kitchen.  It's calling my name!

The slight chill in the house, due to two open windows in Michigan in mid-September.


How I'm Grateful for These Things

Thank you God, for my ability to hear.

Thank you God, for my ability to see.

Thank you for the ability to express myself coherently.

Thank you for the things that DID get done on my To Do List.

Thank you for letting my friend win the lottery! :-)

Thank you for making it so I don't need a psychotherapist (at least not as much as I used to, thanks to gratitude and mindfulness!).  And thank you for giving someone a successful career as one at the Eastwood Clinic.

Thank you for my ability to sit up, and my ability to hold positions for long periods of time.  From my hospice volunteering this year and last, I know that that is definitely not something to be taken for granted.

Thank you for the bag of Baked Lays I'm about to dive into!

Thank you for my ability to feel.

Thank you for allowing me to live in a house where I'm not scared to leave windows open.  I've been scared before!  You can't always trust window screens, and I'm pretty terrified of spiders.


So what things are you mindful of and grateful for in your immediate environment?  Tell me all about it!