I know I have a lot to be thankful for, absolutely. I’m wrong about a lot of things, but I try to not be completely delusional.

Also, I’m very much aware about the benefits of practicing gratitude – both immediate and longer-term. There is an absurd amount of academic literature showing how good gratitude is for you (an amount comparable to maybe even exercise, especially recently).

On top of that, over the past couple weeks I’ve been reminding myself to do gratitude at least a couple times a day. And yet…something doesn’t feel quite right.

I’ve been finding that the things I’m thankful for, sometimes feel a bit ‘stale.’ As in, yes I know I’m relatively fortunate to have this particular circumstance in my life, but it’s just a logical acknowledgment. I don’t really ‘feel’ that much, and my brain just kind of glosses over my gratitude efforts.

What I’ve been trying lately is to pair gratitude with mindfulness. So far, this has been helpful I think. The main benefit is, when my mind is relatively cleared and ready to focus on something non-garbage, I’ve found it easier to insert gratitude during that window.

It’s a process and I’m probably doing a bunch of things wrong, but at least for me it’s progress.