The Life Affirming Practice of Thanking Everything

I have come to learn that to meet life with gratitude is to literally transform your entire experience of living. Nothing has made me surer of this truth than 2025.

At the beginning of this year, it felt like I was going to need different tools to navigate our radically and rapidly changing world. And as its’ turned out, one of those tools has been the daily practice of thanking everything.

Cultivating gratitude as an everyday practice is a way of inviting the heart to lead the way. Appreciation comes when we shift away from wishing and wanting, to being present and grounded in what is already here. It staves off neediness, scarcity, living in a state of discontentment or "not-enoughness", and keeps us in the energetic frequency of the “haves”, versus the constant hunger of the “have-nots.”

What we focus on, where we spend our precious energy, what we say “yes” to matters, as it strengthens and expands within us and all around us. And we each get to choose for ourselves what we want to strengthen and expand.

For me, I wanted less anxiety, less drama, less distraction, less hopelessness, less busyness, less “things”. I wanted more joy, more presence, more authentic connection, more simple pleasures, more contentment. And because I’ve lived long enough to understand that when things get truly challenging, the one thing that’s going to help me above all else is to walk softly over difficult terrain.

So ... each morning this year, before I do anything at all, I’ve begun my day in the garden acknowledging, naming and being with the goodness that is within me and is all around me. The list varies from day to day, just as we all do. Health, my beloveds people, birds, flowers, trees, food in the refrigerator, dreams, hope, trust, the gift of a new day and being here to live it are the usual suspects. And I've noticed that gratitude is a lot like dropping a pebble in a pond, It ripples out in ever widening circles and has a habit of bringing you back more to appreciate. It becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’ve also discovered that thanking in advance, the things I need support with can go a long way to making them so. I’ve noticed that over the days, weeks and months, the practice of thanking the seemingly small, simple, ordinary things build and become something much much more, such as a foundation for a new way of seeing and experiencing yourself and the world. More than anything, its’ truly amazing just how glad your heart, how rich your spirit, how clear your mind, how possible you can feel when you simply sit a for a few moments each day, and look at all that you have and all that you are.

Truly Amazing.

I am so grateful for you being a part of this tiny, joyful, sacred part of my life; that is Jo Miller Loves. Wishing you a beautiful, delicious, peaceful, kind, loving and heart gladdening Thanksgiving.