Having a formal gratitude practice has never struck me as an intuitive thing to do.

Yes, stopping the flow of my life to acknowledge my thanks seems like a wise choice—but somehow it never has seemed to happen for me.

What I hear through the grapevine is that adding a gratitude practice to our lives can be revolutionary. Changing the mind stream from complaints to thanks can have a real impact on our mental state and therefore shift our internal environments.

And what you do to the inside, you do to the outside. In other words, once you start this, life circumstances will probably change, too. But not by doing anything. Not by quitting our job or getting a divorce or by raging and screaming that everything that is happening to us is so unfair.

Instead, this shift looks much simpler and gentler.

For instance, this morning I realized I am wrong.

After thinking for years that I don’t have a gratitude practice in my life, I realized that I do.

I actually give thanks all the time.

I just do it without stopping the flow of my life. My gratitude and appreciation for my life, exactly how it is, just happens to be enmeshed in the moments.

I have been knitting my love for my life straight into the fabric of my reality for a long time now without even knowing it.

I wake up in the morning and I love the softness of my pillow, I love the taste of my lemon water, I love my daughter’s groggy little face and I love the light coming into the window. And I think, “Wow, I get to live here, in this house with these experiences.”

This is gratitude.

I do this every day.

Of course, I a also get grumpy that the oats burned and nervous about an e-mail I have to send and worried my project for the day won’t be a success.

It is all there together.

In my life.

In all of our lives.

The things we find pleasant and the things we find unpleasant.

But instead of constantly looking for ways to change everything, we can just bring a subtle yet powerful sprinkling of gratitude to the billions of moments each day that are nice.

This is enough.

We really have no choice, it just has to be enough.

And it is.

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Relephant Read:

5 Ways to Kick-Start our Self-Esteem Recovery.

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Author: Ruth Lera

Editor: Alli Sarazen

Photo: Gareth Williams/Flickr