By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney
Living thanksgiving calls for appreciation. It’s an ongoing process that requires present awareness. When you were a kid, you may have practiced present awareness effortlessly. In fact, a sure blessing linked to a happy, loving childhood is the ability to live in the present.
When you feel safe, loved and wanted, you can become fully involved in what you’re experiencing right now. Gone is the temptation to daydream or to pretend that you are someplace else.
Living Thanksgiving in The Present
Even more, a blessed childhood can keep you from looking to the future. Experience a loving childhood and you might not fall into the habit of convincing yourself that good things are always in the future always “out there” somewhere. That by itself can bring more goodness into your life.
After all, as you enjoy living in the present, you can actually experience the happiness that is associated with appreciation. The more physically present the thing you appreciate is, the stronger the happiness you may feel.
Try it. See how you feel when you fantasize or imagine having an experience that you like, but the experience is always in the future. Then, give yourself an experience that you enjoy right now. Look around your environment and count 5 things that you appreciate about the experience that you’re having right now. Which way feels better?
How Daydreaming and Fantasizing Influence Thankfulness
Daydreaming about a future experience that’s always too far ahead of you to enjoy or entering a loving experience and appreciating it right now? Which feels better right now? Fortunately, you could learn to appreciate what’s happening right now even if yours was a troubled childhood.
Furthermore, as it regards a blessed childhood, this doesn’t mean that you never felt sad or angry as a kid. It means that you didn’t experience trauma, especially ongoing trauma when you were a child. Trauma that’s experienced during childhood could make you want to be someplace else. To read more about childhood trauma, check out this article.
Continuously daydreaming, fantasizing and telling yourself that situations are better than they actually are could be signs that you have unresolved trauma. The good news is that you can deal with trauma and get through it, even it doing so requires the help of a licensed and highly experienced professional who you trust.
Associated Benefits of Living Thanksgiving
Whether yours was a trauma-free or stressful childhood, it can take work to start living in the present. When you consider the blessings associated with living in the present, you might be encouraged to try.
Living thanksgiving offers rewards. To start, when you are fully present, you notice more. You actually see colors, people, events that you might otherwise miss. Other benefits include:
- Strengthening your intuition – the more you become aware of what’s happening right now, the more clues you can pick up about what’s coming. You also might start to notice slight shifts in your inner guidance which could allow you to pick up when something feels right or wrong.
- Enjoy conversations more deeply – being present can help you to hear what people are saying more fully and more clearly. This, in turn, could lead to a deep appreciation for what’s being shared.
- Dining may become less of an addictive action – live in the present and you might stop and only eat while you’re dining. This could allow you to taste your food and beverages more thoroughly. Keep it up and you might stop eating and/or drinking to feed an emotion or to avoid an emotion or memory. (According to Psychology Today, trauma can cause your brain to replay the traumatic event.)
- Improved relationships – Hearing and listening to people better can strengthen interpersonal relationships. You also might pick up when someone is disrespecting you and choose to love yourself and ask the person to hold you in respect as you do them.
Exploring More Thankfulness Advantages
There are more advantages connected to living thanksgiving. It could take a while, but you’d eventually see that everything in this world is temporary. That includes traumas that you’ve experienced, if you experienced trauma. The key is to let the trauma go. Again, you might need help from a licensed and experienced professional you trust.
The more you realize how temporary everything is in this world, the more you might pause and enter living thanksgiving as you observe what’s happening in your life and around you. If you’ve ever seen a loved one transition, you know the power of being thankful for what’s happening now.
Delay living thanksgiving and you could encounter regret. For instance, you might not appreciate a person, a pet or an experience until after the person or pet transitions or the experience has ended. Just think about it. How much joy and peace would you allow into your life if you appreciated what was right in front of you?
If you’re in a challenging situation, look for something to appreciate. But don’t stop there. Also, seek a way out of the situation. Definitely gain lessons from the experience. Don’t leave an experience with empty pockets. Always walk away with a lesson, at the minimum.
Surprising Answers
Throughout your journey, focus on appreciating what’s happening now. This means appreciating the people around you now, appreciating a job that you’re in right now and appreciating your dwelling now. To repeat, this doesn’t mean that you don’t seek a better job or dwelling. It means that you find something to be thankful about where you are right now.
Living thanksgiving or appreciating what’s right in front of you can keep you free of a nagging sense that something is always wrong. It can keep you energized and hopeful. Just remember to be honest about what you’re thankful about. For instance, if you don’t like loud music, don’t say that you do. However, if you’re in an area where music is being played loudly, you might be able to appreciate the lyrics.
You might even discover an answer to a question you’ve been mulling in the lyrics. When you practice living thanksgiving, another takeaway is that you could become more aware. It’s no secret that appreciation and awareness are linked. After all, you actually have to practice awareness to spot things to appreciate.
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