If you don’t notice it, you can’t be grateful for it

My gratitude practice is in three parts: Noticing, Appreciating, Sharing. The first step is the most important and the most overlooked step. We can’t be grateful for something we don’t notice. The beautiful thing about noticing is that it’s a habit. The more you notice, the more you will notice. I happened to notice something tiny and beautiful when I walked into my yard earlier. It was the drop of rain hanging on to the pine needles  of my tree (see eCard below). This is a very simple thing, not something I would lock into memory until my dying day. But it is a moment of being present and finding beauty that I could have very easily ignored.

The second step is appreciating. Once you notice something good or bad, beautiful or hideous, or just an everyday sight, you can choose how you respond to it. Will you find the bad in it and complain? Will you find the good in it and appreciate it? Will you ignore it or some other response? Remember that gratitude is a choice. It is a choice that you can practice and practice makes habit.

The third step is sharing. There are few things as beautifully contagious as authentic gratitude. Share your gratitude and others will naturally think about what they are grateful for. You might share your gratitude with us here in ourgratitudecollective, on facebook, with your family over dinner, in a text to a friend, or any way that is comfortable for you.

When you seek beauty in all people and all things you will not only find it you will become it.
~unkown

My name is Antonia Montoya, born, raised, and gratefully living in Albuquerque, NM. When we notice, appreciate, and share our gratitude it grows exponentially right before our very grateful eyes. I hope you will join our gratitude collective.

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