40 Days Final Thoughts: Practicing Gratitude

Today, amongst other things, I’m grateful for my wacky and wonderful family and all the great adventures we’ve had in the past and will continue to have in the future! Here we are in Brussels a few years ago. 

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet, just like me 😉

I just got back from the final 40 Days Workshop (read my opening thoughts here) and I’m feeling so grateful for all the wonderful teachers and participants who have helped shape my journey over the last 36 days (the actual transformation ends on Thursday). I’ve dug deep into a lot of personal sh*t, some of it awesome, some of it not quite so pretty, but all of it necessary. I’ve made a few commitments to myself that I plan on continuing past the end of this challenge. They’re simple, but powerful and transformational for me. Check em out below:

1. I am making a commitment to continue journaling daily. Out of everything I’ve done over the last 40 days this practice has forced me to become the most vulnerable. When you’re writing out stream of consciousness stuff it’s pretty hard to make excuses and you tend to get to know yourself pretty quickly. Sometimes you don’t always like what you find, but if that’s the case figure out why you don’t like it and then quit being a baby and do something about it!
2. This commitment connects in with my previous one in that I’m vowing to be honest with myself about my actions and the intentions behind them. Those who know me know I can justify pretty much anything and sometimes that’s great, but sometimes it prevents my from reaching beyond my comfort zone into a new area that has the potential to bring me a lot of joy or tons of awesome experiences. So now when I feel myself starting to justify or make excuses I’m going to check in with myself and see what’s going on just below the surface.
3. Honor my body and my physical yoga practice by realizing when I need to push myself and when I need to give myself a little love and attention. That doesn’t necessarily mean skipping out on my practice altogether, but maybe I just have a playful home practice or hit up a sweet restorative class at the studio. Some days it may mean doing a few stretches and journaling or meditating, but if I stick with commitment #2 I should prevent any of the old laziness or excuses from creeping in.
   

   I’m also super grateful that last weekend I got to spend time with old friends and ski my buns off at two separate and awesome mountains in BC!

4. Be grateful! This one is super simple, but I’ve found has changed my life in indescribable ways. Just taking the time every day to say one thing (or tons of things!) that I’m grateful for has helped me achieve a more positive outlook and approach to my life as a whole. Even when shitty things happen, like me spilling water over my entire business course notebook full of all my genius pearls of wisdom (hehe) and making it illegible I stop my initial reaction of “ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME!?!?” and be grateful that hey I can read a few words here, I remember talking about this in class, and whoa I just came up with something even more powerful and awesome than I had before! Funny how life works like that. Sometimes not getting what you want is exactly what you need to become even more awesome! 😉

Well I think that’s it for today. I’m sure there are so many other things I won’t even notice that I’m carrying through into my day-to-day routine, but these are the biggies that really stuck out for me today. I have a little bit of homework for you. I know, I know, homework is the blurst! But this will take all of 2 minutes I promise.

Step one: Find a piece of paper and a pen.

Step two: Write down one person, experience, object, food, or whatever that you’re grateful for in this exact moment.

Step three: Write down why you’re grateful for this particular thing you’ve chosen

That’s it. That’s all I want you to do. If you do it and you think it’s stupid, that’s totally fair and I promise you’ll never have to do it again. But maybe you’ll do this exercise and suddenly start noticing little things you’re grateful for as time goes on and it will fundamentally change the way you see the world. You won’t know until you try. All you’ve got to lose is 2 minutes of your life. Less than that youtube video clip your friend just sent you. So give it a try and let me know what you’re grateful for in the comments 🙂

As always, thanks for stopping by friends and have an utterly fantastic week!

Cait