To Infinity and Beyond: Creating a Gratitude Loop
by Kinga Lewandowska
From the first ray of sun that wakes us up in the morning to the first shaft of moonlight settling on our bed before we go to sleep, our life is a balancing act. Positive and negative elements of our existence battle for dominance in our hearts and minds and keep all our inner wheels spinning 24/7. No wonder we sometimes struggle to switch it all off or consciously tip the scales in favor of joy, freedom, and light.
Worry and pain will never be fully obliterated from our daily schedules but there’s a way to soften the blow – you might have guessed it – gratitude, the perfect cushion to land on after a fall.
Your Finest Hour
As much as we sometimes wish for more hours in a day, each morning, we get exactly 24 of those to spend. Within this time frame, we need to dedicate a few minutes to the soul. Strategically, the best slots for a gratitude practice come with the first and last light of day. That’s when our minds are in their most peaceful state, able to accept gratitude with no distractions or filters.
Even adhering to the 9-5 regimen that takes some of our control away, it’s still up to us to arrange the building blocks of our day in whatever sequence we see fit. Deep clean your routine. Zero out your to-do list, and start planning from scratch. Habits are great and all but if you try to stick to too many, they might quickly become a burden and effectively stop serving their purpose. Oh, and breaks are productive.
For example, research shows that our ability to pause and rest is invaluable to learning new skills. In one study, 27 participants were asked to learn a short sequence of numbers. After 36 trials "participants were faster at typing the sequence immediately after a 10-second break than they were just before the break."
So take a gratitude break throughout the day. Our morning and evening rituals build a solid foundation for positivity, yet the more we cultivate our appreciation for life, the easier and more natural it will get. The more you allow your subconscious to scan your reality for moments of serenity and beauty, the more finely tuned to happiness you’ll become. Put gratitude on the infinity loop, is what we’re saying.
Play It On Repeat
The benefits of gratitude are countless, really. Emotional, social, or physical well-being all depend on whether we can feel thankful for what we have or frustrated with what we don’t. It’s simple math – more gratitude equals a better life. So if we put gratitude on a loop and if we keep that loop in tip-top shape so it never breaks, sooner or later we will crack the code for the most fulfilling existence we can possibly have.
So how does one create this infinity for gratitude?
Start with shifting your priorities. You probably have a favorite song you can sing from memory or a movie you’ve seen a thousand times and know all the dialogues by heart. Why do we keep going back to something so familiar? Because it’s cozy and it feels like a warm hug. Here are a few ideas on how to play gratitude on repeat in a similar manner:
- Keep your gratitude journal at hand – on your nightstand, in your bag, on the main screen in your phone – so it’s always at the ready when you feel like expressing your appreciation for life.
- Uninstall unnecessary apps from your devices – we control technology, not the other way round – but consider allowing your gratitude journal to notify you when the time comes to fill it in again.
- Be as specific as you can be in your entries. Marie Forleo once said, “If you want the most ROI for your gratitude practice, the dividends are in the details”. Zoom in on the essence of your bliss and you’ll see traces of it around you more and more often.
- Pick a nearby tree and anytime you walk or jog past it, think of someone or something that sparks joy in your heart. Isn’t a gratitude tree a beautiful concept in itself?
- Choose a song and make it your gratitude anthem. Whenever you sing it, you’ll be expressing your love for life and all its blessings.
- Whenever you notice any small pleasures with the power to alter your mood, write them down. Then, indulge more often.
- If you associate a particular scent with a happy memory, surround yourself with its notes in essential oils, candles, or a little bit of perfume—gratitude likes to loop to the past to improve our present.
- Play with friends – the first person to list ten solid reasons for gratitude wins!
If you’re healthy, you’re wealthy. So often we appreciate something only when it breaks or someone only when they’re gone. So frequently we get angry at obstacles in our way instead of thinking how the situation still could have been worse but it wasn’t. Gratitude rewires our brain provided that we train it like the muscle it is – the more we do so, the stronger it’ll get. Until we can use it to move mountains.
“Sometimes I’d get mad because things didn’t work out so well, I’d spoil a flapjack, or slip in the snowfield while getting water, or one time my shovel went sailing down into the gorge, and I’d be so mad I’d want to bite the mountaintops and would come in the shack and kick the cupboard and hurt my toe. But let the mind beware, though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious.”
― Jack Kerouac
Stay In the Loop
The gratitude loop is an upward spiral that will keep you happy in perpetuity. Stretch those few minutes of your morning and evening practice to cover the entire day and miracles will start popping up like notes of the most beautiful song on the stave of your life. Gratitude is both a tuning fork and an anthem. We encourage you to follow its sweet sound to infinity and beyond.