Sometimes gratitude feels like that thing that I want to devote time to, but somehow keeps moving to the bottom of my to do list. I have grateful thoughts about the people I’m closest with in my life ALL the time, and I voice them–but sometimes it feels like lip service, even when it isn’t.

I spent some time thinking about this phenomenon. With so much gratitude in my heart and on my lips, why does it feel empty? Is it because I can never fully express what I’m feeling in the moment and I worry people won’t know how grateful I am? Is it because I don’t have a practice around gratitude? Is it because even though I’m constantly grateful I don’t feel it’s influence running through my life in a way that’s ever-present or making a difference in how I live?

While I haven’t discovered the answers to all these questions, my brain kept coming back to this one over and over:

Is it because I don’t have a practice around gratitude?

Unsure of how to approach an answer, I parked it, and waited.

A few weeks later, the girls birthdays came (as they do every year, one right after the other in October and November) and I found myself with a mile-long list of thank you notes to write. My older daughter is old enough to write her own, but while I was helping her I realized how far I’d gotten from my regular practice of writing thank yous… and how much I missed it. Why did it feel like such a burden, especially now, when I have more thank you notes to write than ever.

In search of some answers I pulled out my box of thank you notes, thoroughly dismayed at how disorganized it was, and started arranging them, finding beautiful notes and stationary I’d bought and never used and fully written thank you notes I’d never found time to send. And then I found a note–written to myself on actual stationary–in which I thanked myself for my dedication and commitment to finishing my first book. Tears came to my eyes as I read, and when I flipped it over to read the rest (I used to write long thank you notes to everyone, not just myself) I found a sticky note that read:

Alix – what if you wrote a thank you note to yourself everyday and tucked it away? It would help you in the moment and it would serve as a reminder in the future of what made you happy.

I laughed (just think of the cost!) but it struck me nonetheless, and as I finished arranging my box of gratitude I was so struck by it’s beauty and inspiration that I found myself actually wanting to write thank you notes again. And then I thought: Why not put this box somewhere I can see it? Why not start everyday with at least one thank you note to one person and see where it gets me? What if it changes something?

So that’s what I did. I kept a running list on my phone of people I wanted to thank –family, friends, PTA volunteers, service providers–and added to it when I’m moved to. And every morning, before I workout, I pull out my gratitude box, set a timer for ten minutes, light a candle, and write a thank you note. Sometimes I only finish one note, but many mornings I get to two or three, and by the time a week has passed I’ve written at least ten thank you notes–and still my list grows.

It’s an incredible feeling to put them in the mailbox each morning and even more so to receive thanks for my thanks. It’s a ripple effect, and I can absolutely feel it’s influence running through my life. It’s made me realize that sometimes the more time I spend thinking about things, the more anxiety I have around doing the,. But the more I ACT on things I’m constantly thinking about, the more joy they bring.