Showering Your Gratitude on Yourself
This time of year, the word gratitude gets thrown around a lot. It's not terrible--we could all use reminders to be in a grateful mindset, as it not only feels good, but it's also good for our health.
But I want to give you a twist for your gratitude list this year: I want you to shower that gratitude on yourself!
Why?
We tend to forget ourselves, and take ourselves for granted.
Think about it for a moment: There's so many things you do (out of habit at this point) to take care of yourself daily. That matters! There's probably also ways you've gone above and beyond to care for yourself. That really counts!
It may spark some ways we can be kinder to ourselves.
You may start going down the list of what you're grateful to yourself for, and realize that you have been neglecting yourself lately. Oops! If that's the case, what would you like to start doing for yourself to be kinder and more compassionate?
It feels good and we've likely earned the recognition!
Just like feeling gratitude for others boosts the mood, it's like extra feel-good when we're recognizing ourselves. Since you've likely never been taught to send your gratitude inward, there's probably a lot you have to thank yourself for that your self would really appreciate being acknowledged for. ;-)
Here's some ways to shower yourself with gratitude:
Look at yourself in the eyes in the mirror, and tell yourself something you're grateful to yourself for. Do it every morning or every evening, or both!
Write a letter of gratitude to your past self, for all the ways you've shown up for yourself, healed yourself, stood up for yourself, nurtured yourself, etc, throughout your whole life so far.
Give yourself a hug and simply say, "thank you for having my back."
Sing yourself a made-up song about your awesomeness, or dedicate a song to yourself and do a dance jam to it.
There's probably a million other ways to shower gratitude on yourself--what comes to mind for you?
