Creative gratitude can transform your life.
Creative gratitude is more than feeling appreciation for the AH-mazing creative insight you got in your dream last night or the “light bulb” moment that smashed into your brain while you were in the shower. I’m talking about a deep, conscious way of living that you carry with you in all you do, aware and grateful of how each experience or encounter (and subsequent reaction) shapes your life in a creative way.
That shitty thing that happened yesterday? Turn it into a blog post that takes your point of view and turns it into a cautionary tale or an expression of new awareness you choose to share with others. Indecisive client making you insane? Take it as a heads up to look at your own life and see where you may be unable to see “the forest through the trees”. Desire more recognition in your personal or professional life? Show up and give what you wish to receive to yourself first, and stop looking for it by keeping yourself busy with an endless, streaming, to-do list to feel recognized.
There are endless ways to light up and be in gratitude, and Zen Habits offers some simple ways to start a practice, but you have to WANT to embrace the healing available on the other side. The true power of creative gratitude is really in what it invites you to explore as well as release to make room for more powerful, supportive things in your life.
Creative Awareness and Release Are Like your Secret Healing Ninjas
Do more than write a laundry list of what you appreciate each day, rolling over it in your brain as you drift off to sleep. Really feel into the things and ideas that invite in a range of emotions, not just the happy, good feeling ones. Be willing to experience all dimensions of your life — where you are disappointed, challenged, irritated AND happy. Appreciate what an experience has taught you; the old patterns or ideas that need to be burned with fire and for the new understanding you are creating on the other side.
Practice being in the moment and really feel the range of what it offers to you for the deepest experience of creative awareness and inner healing. Do it today. Make it part of your everyday experience as often as possible. Pair it with a real life action that helps get you closer to an even deeper sense of appreciation in every way possible, knowing it will seed itself and take shape at the best and most appropriate time.
Creative gratitude will transform your creative blocks in ways you never expect and have a far reaching impact on all areas of your life — if you are willing to make it a simple, daily life practice. In fact, I think it’s the one of the most loving things a person can do for themselves.
What are some simple ways you express creative gratitude in your daily life?