Gratitude

As the new school year begins, it’s a good time to cultivate gratitude. By doing so we can increase our wellbeing and happiness.

We can feel gratitude towards others in response to being given a gift or being the beneficiaries of good intentions. We can also feel a sense of gratitude towards the local environment, our homes, the world and other people. By doing this we appreciate the goodness in our lives and outside our lives. Simply being grateful for being alive is a great motivator.

Some of the benefits of having an attitude of gratitude include;

-Being happier and liked more by others,

-Strengthening our emotions and helping us to be optimistic,

-Reducing materialism and increasing spiritualism,

-Increasing our self-control and resilience and

-Making us more concerned about others than ourselves.

Writing a gratitude journal can increase wellbeing by more than 10% and writing a gratitude letter to someone can also serve as a happiness booster. Simply talking about what you have been grateful for at the end of each day is a powerful activity for celebrating all the good things happening in your lives. Another fun idea is to make a paper chain with gratitude messages. At Barwon Heads PS, we create opportunities for our school community to express their gratitude in a multitude of ways including written notes to others, diary writing, conversations and students writing letters to their parents. The students also create art works in which they can express gratitude. Once we begin to be grateful, we realise and notice the many things around us that we can appreciate.

 

There is always something to be thankful for.