A Gratitude Reflection Practice - To Do Solo or With a Friend
This is a reflection exercise to do with a friend, your hubby, or just solo with a pen and paper. It’s a way to look at your growth and foster what you want more of moving forward. It’s also fun with a group at the dinner table. Ready? Cool! Here goes…
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Right now, in your mind, I want you to take a cursory look back at 2015 in its entirety. What sticks out to you as the most important moments you had? Now start to retrace where you were one year ago: look at where you were last January and February – think about what was on your mind – what you were concerned about, what were you looking forward to, what were you planning. Now grab a pen or a friend! Here’s the reflection exercise. You can go first by saying one of your biggest gratitudes of the year. Then your friend does their first one. You go back and forth until you’ve both said three. Got it? Here’s the rest of it.
- Three Biggest Gratitudes of the Year
What are your most important moments or milestones from the year in its entirety? One of mine is my wedding (I know, kind of a cheat), one is my honeymoon, one is my first monthly donation for my blog/podcast.
- Three Forms of Personal Growth
I want you to think of three changes you made to your life that you are proud of, last year. Reflect upon any goals you had that you now recognize you’ve achieved. This could be a single decision you made that advanced your life, a new habit you took on, or a bad habit you worked to overcome.
If you’re doing this with a friend, it’s even more to say one and then have your friend say one they’ve observed about you. Then they say one of their own and you say one you’ve observed about them. I LOVE doing this! You get so mushy and sweet – and you’d be surprised how much you can learn about yourself from someone close to you.
- Qualities You’d Like to Embody
Last, I want you to pick any number of qualities (preferably 3-5) that you want to bring out more of in yourself in this year moving forward. What do you want to embody and focus on bringing into how you act and live out this next year to come. Mine are present, open, inspired, loving, fearless.
If you have my Happiness Journal (My Best Year Yet) or you write in a journal of your own, these qualities would become your newly decided “I am” statements. This is the statement you reaffirm to yourself as a focus-training exercise. It’s basically a way to visually reinforce who you decide to live as and how you decide to conduct your life. The practice of writing these qualities down keeps it inside your sphere of awareness.
And that’s it! I hope you enjoy it! By doing this reflection, I want you to become aware of the real change you’ve created in your life. Because most of the progress we make is invisible to us –we’re the ones living it and we are our harshest critics. It’s easy to focus on where we want to be vs. how far we’ve already come. Whether or not you can see it right now, you did change this past year – and for the better.
To gently correct the path of your ship as it sails the current that is life, be more aware of the tiny details of how you approach your present moment. Let go of any analysis of how quickly life is moving, how far behind you are, or any measuring you might be drawn to do of this thing called “time.” That focus is simply a distraction; it removes you from what you want more of – and your full experience of your life. Where your mind goes, your life goes – so keep your mind oriented toward what it is you care about and choose to embody in your life’s sum. You are always in motion and forever making progress – the best way you can be more of what you want, is to fine tune your approach to this day, today, right now. Forgive yourself the responsibility of stressing out over what was, what will be, and be happy for the path you’re currently navigating right now. After all, sailing is fun.
I hope you enjoy this, and I wish you much love! xo
Featured image via Flickr
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