Thankfulness Thursday I

And, we're back. :-) 

Goodness, I love this series. I am so excited to be diving into Thankfulness Thursdays for the sixth year now. Six years! As cliche as it feels to say, it seems like forever ago and yesterday all at once, and I'm just happy to still be here. 

Most of you know the drill, but if you're new around here, here's how it goes - every Thursday for the month of November, I share a post here on the blog centering around gratitude or what I'm particularly grateful for. Additionally, I'm carrying the series over to Instagram as well, and will be posting over there every Thursday as well. This year will be the biggest yet, and I'm so excited! And I want you to be involved as well. 

My favorite part of Thankfulness Thursdays is seeing people join in - I love this little community, and I love hearing your thoughts over the course of the month. There’s no major method to the madness - I would just love for you to share what’s on your heart this November. This year has been a wild one, and I’m really hoping that Thankfulness Thursdays will be a way for us all to take a step back and just breathe.

Tag me in your posts on Instagram, and I will share them on my story, and shoot me a comment, email, or DM if you post for Thankfulness Thursday on your blog, and I’ll link to it on my blog post for that week so that we all can see what everyone is sharing.

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If I'm being completely honest, I've been wrestling quite a bit over the course of this year with contentment.

Which, for me, has really never been the norm. I'm the kind of person who's content to stay where they are. I have more goals and bucket list items and "one day"'s than I could begin to count, and I've always been pecking away at some sort of project trying to get there - but when it comes to the day to day, I've almost always been content.

As everything has flipped upside down this year, not only with the pandemic but a litany of life things, I've found myself struggling more and more to be okay where I am. More often than not, I've wanted to be anywhere but where I am. I've driven myself crazy wishing to go back to how things used to be, or dreaming up how things could be. And I've hated it, this discontentment, hated the lack of peace that it's given me. 

One night a few months back, I was lying in bed, wrestling with it all and trying to figure out how on earth to, for lack of a better term, pull myself together. And the whisper of clarity that I received was so distinct that I wrote it down on the spot, because I knew there was no way it could have come from my tangled-up brain: contentment looks like gratitude.

Gratitude and contentment pretty much go hand in hand. When you're content, you're grateful for what you've been given, and when you're grateful, contentment isn't too far behind. And that's what I've had to remind myself, over and over and over. 

Life is hard, but there is so much to be grateful for. And maybe life in this season doesn't look like what I would have chosen, but I'm here for a reason, and I can make the conscious decision to be grateful for the good that is around me. I can choose what I dwell on - and that definitely isn't a battle that I win every day, or even most days. But it's a refrain that I can choose, a rewiring that I can aim towards. And in the conscious act of choosing gratitude over and over again, it becomes more and more of a default. That's why I'm extra excited for this series this year - because I know that it's the push I need to keep rewiring my brain towards gratitude. 

Whenever I start panicking or feeling overwhelmed or stuck, I'm trying to get into the habit of taking the time to calm down and think through things that I'm grateful for about my present circumstances - the things in this season of life that are good. I shared a list of some of my favorites from this week over on my Instagram, and I'm going to drop that list here - maybe it will give you a starting point of your own. :-)

gratitude:

- the ocean
- journaling on the front porch as the sun comes up
- the beanie that my best friend knit for me
- books that make me laugh
- books that make me cry
- books that do both
- tiny birds that make me smile
- blasting bad 2000’s pop music while I get ready in the morning
- blueberry bagels + cream cheese
- time to finally breathe
- sweater pockets full of seashells
- long walks
- sunrises and sunsets and all the colors of the sky in between

Contentment looks like gratitude. I just keep reminding myself of that fact, over and over and over. Contentment looks like gratitude - and I have so much to be grateful for. 

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Thankfulness Thursday Friends ♥

Keira -- Close to Nothing

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What are you grateful for this week, friends? I'd love to hear. And hey - I'd love for you to join in the Thankfulness Thursday challenge. Be sure to drop a link in the comments if you do - I'd love to share it, and I'd love to see it. ♥  Check out my instagram to see some of the incredible humans joining in over there on my story - I love them all so dearly.