This morning while laying in bed…What? Wait!! I was laying in bed! Thanks to my beautiful wife, even though the kids were up at their usual 6′ish (Yes, as in 6am on the weekend!) she let me sleep in.

So we were laying there and she reminded me that this was my 4th Father’s Day! I sat there for a moment recalling the last 3 of them and just noticing how grateful I felt. Having experienced 4 years of infertility we both only dreamed about celebrating Mother’s and Father’s Day. It’s almost like a second birthday for sure!

I haven’t really spoken about being grateful much in the past and thought now would be a perfect time. Just recently I made a conscious decision to be mindfully grateful.

What is Mindfully Grateful?

Basically my definition of this is that you are very intentional to be aware of what you’re grateful for. There are different ways of doing this. For me, I actually use an app on my iPhone called Gratitude Journal to write down specifically what I’m grateful for.

I can’t go any further without telling the whole truth…I got the idea of writing down things I’m grateful for from Oprah.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way I thought it’d be best for me to use an app. I’m a little geeky that way and I like the idea of having my list on me throughout the day. I need to do a better job of my consistency but basically right before I go to bed I’ll write out 5 quick things I am grateful for. Most of them are relevant to the the day I just had. Normally they are things that are very simple such as a glass of wine, the sun, a hug, etc. The point is in appreciating what I do have and what is in my life. Giving attention to what I have not only keeps me mindful of the positive things in my life but keeps me in the present (the now). I’m not thinking about the future and I’m not really thinking about the past. Everything I’m grateful for is happening right now and I do my best to live in the right now. So you can see how something so simple that takes literally minutes a day can have such an impact on your life and self awareness.

Below is a screenshot from the list I made tonight. I put my wife first on the list because I very literally wouldn’t be a Father without her. She was amazing through all of our Infertility and I owe all of this to her.

 

I had an amazing day filled with plenty of time with the wife and kids, even a little “me time”. It was so nice to hear from so many friends and family today as well. Special days like this make it easy to find so many things I’m grateful for. What’s even more special is that I know tomorrow night before I go to bed I’ll have my list and I’ll be celebrating all over again.

Are you mindfully grateful? Do you keep a list or take mental note on a regular basis?