Offering Gratitude For Yourself To Yourself
Most of the time when we think of gratitude, what may come to us is to be grateful for our loved ones and certain things, opportunities, for what we have managed to reach so far in life, while we don’t necessarily remember to simply appreciate ourselves the way we are right now, the complex, unique being, all of who we are unconditionally without any reason.
Being grateful for the sake of being grateful and for the fact that we exist on this planet.
At the end of each calendar year there is a good opportunity to offer this wholehearted acceptance towards ourselves, but we don’t even need to wait for any such festive moment to give ourselves the gift of gratitude for who we are, moreover this attitude can be a regular practice of our everydays.
It is so simple just to stop, pause for a minute or two to focus on this gratefulness in the hustle and bustle of life before going on to the next thing/task to accomplish. This way we can truly connect to a deep, solid, inner source of self-love that is independent of any outside circumstances and how other people see us.
When we have more time, we can try a more specific approach to explore certain things about ourselves that we feel happy about.
Here are some hints for acknowledging who you already are:
What are the things you would NOT change about yourself?
What can you be grateful for about yourself? (They do not need to be very unique things or things that other people (also) like about us.)
Examples:
Gratitude for :
-the wonderful body that sustains us, keeps us each and every day
-for the infinite shades of our emotions, feelings and sensations that all have a unique purpose and meaning in our lives and make our life experiences colourful, extraordinary, unrepeatable
-the ability to live life in its full spectrum through our individual perspective of experiencing the world
- our distress tolerance
- stamina
And so on…
This practice can invoke a natural, effortless rise in self-esteem and we can get to know ourselves more deeply. It can be developed into a subconscious attitude that brings immense joy while it spontaneously releases stress by letting go of the need to force and pursue change about the things we might deem as not perfect in ourselves.
