A few years ago for Valentine’s Day I decided to do something different. I can’t take credit for this idea, I saw in a parenting group I follow. It’s a good one, and I can say that from experience.

Instead of cards and candy for my family that year, I made 15 hearts from different colored construction paper for each of them. Each day starting February 1st, I wrote something special or unique about each of them, something I valued and loved that was specific to them. While they slept, I taped the hearts onto their bedroom doors (for my husband onto our closet door).

They had no idea I was doing it, so the first morning when they saw their hearts, they were surprised, a little confused, and then really touched. There on the paper heart was something about them, truly about them, that I love but don’t always, or even often, comment on.

Each morning from then on they woke up excited to see what the new heart was like, what color it was, what it said on it. And finally on Valentines Day they each got two hearts, the one with the unique lovable quality and the biggest heart, with Valentine’s well wishes and I love you’s. It was a really nice couple of weeks. In fact, my kids wanted to extend it so I came up with a couple more for each of them and we went for a few more days.

Almost three years later the hearts are still there, still taped to the doors. No one has wanted to take them down.

This was such an amazing exercise for me. In preparation for February, I had to sit down and come up with 14-15 different, specific, and unique qualities that I loved and valued about each of my two daughters and my husband. It’s harder than you might think. Of course there are millions of things I love and value about them. To describe them specifically and with detail, however, is actually quite difficult. Not because those things aren’t there, but because we so rarely take the time to become fully aware of the blessings in our lives with such detail and specificity.

From going through the process of itemizing what turned out to be only a portion of the things I love and value about each of them, I became so much more aware of their amazingness, and so much more grateful for each of them.

For them, each day they learned something new not only about themselves but also about how much of them I actually see, notice, observe, and appreciate. They appreciated that I actually do see things in them even if I don’t always mention them. They may have even noticed for the first time something they hadn’t seen in themselves before.

The positive feelings and thoughts this gift generated for all of us were wonderful, and lasting.

This brings me to the practice of gratitude. How many of us actually make gratitude a regular practice? I don’t just mean rote prayers or vague statements of gratitude. I mean practicing gratitude in a way that makes us really think specifically about the things, qualities of loved ones, situations, relationships, etc for which we feel grateful.

Today give yourself the gift of gratitude, and therefore of greater joy. Make a commitment to finding ways to bring greater gratitude into your life. Spend just a few minutes each morning or each evening writing down three things about which you feel grateful (I prefer morning just because it sets a more positive tone for the day). Make them as specific and detailed as possible and try to think of new ones, or different aspects of the same ones, each day. Don’t judge what you write down, anything and everything for which you feel grateful give you the same benefit. Even if it may seem silly or trivial, it’s not.

If you’d like to take this a step further out, share your gratitude with those it involves. Tell your mail carrier you’re grateful s/he is there every day to deliver your mail; tell your kids you’re grateful they are happy to see you even on your worst day, that you’re grateful for their hugs; tell your spouse that you’re grateful for his/her efforts to give you a comfortable life, to make you laugh, to spend time with the family.

Maintain this practice for some time and you’ll be amazed at how it helps change your thinking, and your experience of peace, connection, and joy in your life.

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