Hard times can make it challenging to feel grateful for what you have. During these difficult times it might be hard to remember that we do have a choice in who we are being.  Every thought, every moment gives us an opportunity to choose who we want to be. I want to be happy today.

Nurse, life coach and author Mary Odgers came to experience the pure gratitude of simply being after living through immense tragedy and loss: first, her home and a lifetime of memories were destroyed by a California wildfire.  Then, in a span of 8 weeks, she lost her husband, her father, and her youngest son—all in tragic ways.   She writes about this in her memoir Six Funerals and a Wedding.

Pure gratitude, she says, opens us to experiencing grace -- that is, the awe inspiring awareness of the gift of being alive. Through the eyes of pure gratitude, everything looks more beautiful. We are touched with awe.

Here are 4 simple tips Odgers offers for unlocking and experiencing the pure and simple gratitude of being, which people may find especially helpful in these times:

Look at life through the lens of love and what is real

If the old saying “It’s all in how you look at it” is really true, we can decide how we want to see our situation.  Practice this feeling and nurture the awareness it creates.  You can even have fun with it by asking yourself questions such as: does a new car inspire you differently than the smile of an elderly neighbor you have called on to just see how she has been doing?

You can ask yourself the same question as applied to other situations, too, and make a list of the things that inspire you most. Chances are, they are not material, but instead have to do with human connections and moments spent together with others.  Appreciating the profound joy in these moments will bring immense gratitude is one key to experiencing pure gratitude.

Celebrate goodness

Look around you: there is goodness everywhere, even in the most surprising places.  But we tend to forget that.  As a reminder, try acknowledging and celebrating this goodness wherever it is.  One way to do this is to thank everybody present before a meal and acknowledge any special events that may have occurred since you were last together: birthdays, new jobs, new children or grandchildren. 

Lately, during the Coronavirus crisis, I have been finding myself more aware of the importance of acknowledging events that are happening around me. The recent celebration of Cinco de Mayo, for example. With restaurants being closed to diners, many friends were doing delivery or making their own dishes. A family member suggested we make margaritas to celebrate the occasion. And I thought, why not? Why not do something special to join in the fun. We don’t make margaritas all that often but ended up having a great time together. My point is this- don’t miss your opportunity to do your version of a holiday or celebration. It puts you in the spirit of things and keeps you connected to friends and loved ones.

Surround yourself with grateful people

There’s a saying: “We are who we spend time with.” We can influence others by being our best selves, and can become better, more grateful people by surrounding ourselves by others who do the same.

I think it’s okay to do inventories of your friendships’ from time to time. We are at our best and feel most grateful when we have more to give to the world. But if we find that the people we’re spending time with are making us feel drained or don’t live in a place of gratitude themselves, gratitude can be hard to experience. Allow yourself to decide how much time you’ll spend with people who have that effect on you, and to limit it as needed. On the flip side, indulge in spending time abundantly with people who you feel grateful simply to be with.

Let go of material things that burden you

If you find yourself spending time or energy worrying about your things -- how to care for them, the expenditures they require, where to store them -- they are getting in the way of your experience of the gratitude of being.  Letting go of them will free you to connect with gratitude more profoundly. It also brings an opportunity to remember the joy each thing once brought you, to be grateful for the memories of those times and to imagine the joy these things might bring to a new owner.

I tend to get easily overwhelmed with stuff. Something as simple as buying a new kitchen rug can feel good for a moment, until I realize that I didn’t really need it. It is important to notice when enough is enough. You have everything you need.

If you like to buy pretty things, maybe look into providing them for someone else. Contact a shelter or senior center and see what they may need. That can be a very joyful experience. .  

 Any one of these four steps has the potential to unlock a new level of gratitude.  Taken together, they can unlock a beautiful way to simply be.

About the Expert:

Mary Odgers is a writer, registered nurse of twenty-two years, and life coach, whose default view of the world is through the lens of optimism. As the second of six children to a Marine Corps general and a former Navy nurse, Mary moved frequently, and by the age of twenty-one had had twenty different addresses. This nomad-like existence that required starting over numerous times, along with having to reinvent herself after experiencing multiple tragedies, has allowed her to specialize in navigating transitions with her coaching clients. Her book, Six Funerals and a Wedding is out now.

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