A Gratitude Challenge to Start the New Year

I’ve been filled with gratitude lately, and meaning to write a list on the topic. I just stumbled across this blogger challenge, a callout for writers to take 10 minutes, write a stream of consciousness-style list of things for which they’re thankful, and share the link here. Perfect! I’ve copied the instructions at the bottom of the post for anyone who wants to hop on board.

Starting the timer, aaaand…

1. The Internet.

From moving countries to losing pregnancies to making healthy food for my family, the support options available on the web make my life better daily. 

2. Cheese

3. Modern medicine

4. Buddhist practices

5. Ancient wisdom

6. Psychotherapy

7. Bikes

8. Sunshine

Lucky I live in the Middle East! 

9. Writing. In all its glorious forms.

10. Dark chocolate

11. Yoga

12. Technology.

13. Trees.

For their beauty and their oxygen-producing qualities and the leaves they provide that give GG so much joy. 

14. Rainy days. For forcing us to stop every now and again.

15. People who get it.

That moment when someone understands what I’ve been trying to articulate for days or weeks or months or years is truly priceless. 

16. The breath.

Always there, always available to ground me back into the moment. 

17. My Kindle.

I really should start celebrating our anniversary. Coming up on four years now – best present ever. Thanks Nanna!

18. Cameras.

I don’t even want to imagine having a kid in daycare and not getting whatsapp photo updates daily. 

20. Trashy TV

21. Good TV

22. Star Wars.

Deep and entertaining and funny all in one go. Also, sometimes GG sounds like Chewbacca. 

23. Music

24. Airplane mode

24. Nuts.

Without them I would eat far too much of number 2 and number 10. 

25. Weekends

26. Pizza night (Thursdays at our place).

If you don’t already have one I highly recommend instituting it. Especially if you happen to have a husband who can cook. 

27. Meditation in motion.

My practice is patchy these days but all of the moments of mindfulness in my day-to-day life seem drawn to each other like magnets, making a strong basis of consciousness to ground my life. 

28. And of course, these guys.

My lovely little family. My everything. 

What are you grateful for?

If you’d like to join in, here’s how it works: set a timer for 10 minutes; timing this is critical. Once you start the timer, start your list (the timer doesn’t matter for filling in the instructions, intro, etc). The goal is to write 50 things that made you happy in 2015, or 50 thing that you feel grateful for. The idea is to not think too hard; write what comes to mind in the time allotted. When the timer’s done, stop writing. If you haven’t written 50 things, that’s ok. If you have more than 50 things and still have time, keep writing; you can’t feel too happy or too grateful! When I finished my list, I took a few extra minutes to add links and photos.

To join us for this project: 1) Write your post and publish it (please copy and paste the instructions from this post, into yours) 2) Add your post to the InLinkz list. Please note: the InLinkz will expire on January 15, 2015. After that date, no blogs can be added.

Please note that only blog posts that include a list of 50 (or an attempt to write 50) things that made you feel Happy or 50 things that you are Grateful for, will be included. Please don’t add a link to a post that isn’t part of this exercise; I will remove it. Aside from that one caveat, there is no such thing as too much positivity. Share your happy thoughts, your gratitude; help us flood the blogosphere with both!