Appreciation: A New Perspective On Your Mindful Gratitude Routine
There is a subtle difference between gratitude and appreciation. Gratitude is being thankful for something or someone, and appreciation is the recognition and enjoyment of the qualities of something or someone.
This subtle difference gives us more than just something to look up the next time we pull out a dictionary. It gives us a chance to approach our mindful gratitude practice in a new way.
Today we’ll outline a simple way to add an appreciation practice to your life, because there’s always more room to grow in gratitude.
Write It
There’s so much research on the value of writing out or gratitude and we can apply this understanding to our appreciation practice as well.
Sitting for a moment and write down the things and people that we appreciate is a great first step. From there we can write next to each one the reason or set of reasons that we appreciate that thing or person. Letting those lists be as long and specific as we want will allow our appreciation to flow from us naturally without restriction.
Once we have our lists it may help us to internalize our appreciation if we structure it into a story or sentence
While there are so many ways to do this one form it may take is:
I appreciate (Name of Person/ Name of Thing/Name of Experience) because (Reason, Actions Taken, Aspects of The person or thing, etc).
Speak It Or Share It
Once you have your sentences you may want to take this practice a step further. Two potential ways to do this would be to
Record yourself reading these appreciation statements so you can replay them as part of your morning routine.
Sharing your appreciation with the person that you mention in it. If you said you appreciate a particular person, is it possible that you might share your appreciation with them? If you appreciate the fact that your partner cooks dinner, could you share that with them? What might happen when you do?
Make It Routine
Our last suggestion for an appreciation practice is to make it routine. Whether it’s once a day or once a week, adding a steady stream of appreciation to your life can allow you to navigate life’s challenges with a new perspective.
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