Thanks!

This week the USA is preparing for Thanksgiving – a day, a meal, a time to spend with family or friends.

Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, this tradition is starting to seep into our culture. It’s not that we have a special meal (although I do know a couple of people who have started that tradition), nor a holiday. But we’re at least becoming aware of the benefits of saying thank you. Organisations say thank you to their volunteers before the Christmas rush starts in earnest; a few individuals now create their own patterns of gratitude for the month.

Of the traditions that the world catches by osmosis from the USA, this is one of the more positive ones. We don’t have the Thanksgiving story in our culture, but we can pick up on the sentiment.

In our culture, we’re known for ‘tall poppy syndrome’. If someone does well, we ‘cut them down to size’ and make sure that they don’t grow too far beyond the rest of us. It is counter-cultural here to encourage someone and build them up.

Giving thanks is an expression of acknowledgment, appreciation or gratitude.

To acknowledge, appreciate or show gratitude for something means that you had to notice the positive that happened. Where we can’t find anything to be thankful for, we’re looking at the negative and keeping our focus there. If that is you, being thankful is going to require that you look at things differently.

It’s easy to take for granted the positive things that surround us: a roof over our heads, the little things that make us smile, the people around us, another year of life. It’s often in a major crisis that we suddenly appreciate those things that were there all along, but we had stopped noticing them.

Let’s notice the positive things this week without needing a crisis to prompt us; let’s express our appreciation and gratitude; let’s acknowledge that person that we often overlook.

Years ago, I went into a bathroom at a mall and heard the cleaner mutter something about being invisible, as someone pushed past her. Could a simple acknowledgement and ‘thank you’ have transformed her day?

In a world where the majority of people stare at their phones when they’re out in public, it’s hard enough to get eye contact with someone let alone engage them in conversation. But when we spend our time online it’s easy to forget that there is a person right beside us who could do with some encouragement.

Have you heard the saying, “Is the person breathing? If so, they need encouragement.” Everyone can benefit from encouragement or a simple thank you.

In the blog, ‘The ripple effects of a thank you’, Jill Suttie talks about studies in which people are drawn both to those who express gratitude and to those who receive it. Being thankful or doing something worthy of thanks are both seen as markers of someone who is worth interacting with. It makes the recipient feel better and also the one who expressed thanks.

Of course, we’ve all heard the thoughtless thanks of the self-absorbed. Thankfulness without heart is meaningless clanging. Don’t bother.

But don’t use this as an excuse! Just because our culture isn’t thankful doesn’t give us a pass to be self-absorbed. Lift up your eyes, see the people around you. Let your heart engage with what you’re seeing and extend genuine appreciation.

Look at situations through a thankful lens this week. Consider where others are coming from and who they are. Acknowledge a positive trait that you see developing in a child. Thank someone for a kindness. Show appreciation for day-to-day normal stuff that usually goes unnoticed.

No one is going to think that you’re weird, it’s the time of year that you can get away with expressing thanks. According to the Christmas movies that are starting to pop up, this time of year you can get away with saying those kind things that you don’t say for the rest of the year.

I’d like to take that a step further though. Expressing gratitude now can be practise to keep it going, to make it a habit.

Our culture might be one with a warrior spirit and a pioneering backbone, but even warriors and pioneers need encouragement from time to time.

From all the things that come through our screens from the USA, I think that the practice of thanksgiving has the most potential to benefit our culture.

While our American friends gather together this week and share a Thanksgiving meal, I would like to thank them for displaying a positive holiday tradition for us to learn from. I know that those meals are often challenging and the conversations can be hard, but still you meet together and choose to look for the positive in your circumstance. For that I say thank you.

To those of you who have read my blog and reached out with encouragement, thank you.

To those of you who read this and give it a go, thank you. I hope that you and those around you are the better for it.

To those of you who quietly read and just sit with it, I’d like to acknowledge you too. All of us are at different places in our journey – some of you have already walked this journey and learnt the lessons and others haven’t yet begun. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of your life.

Thanks to Brad who taught the Arche Year course that taught me how to build a platform and started me on this journey; and to all my classmates and friends who have encouraged me along the way. Without you, my thoughts would still all be in my head. Lol, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Thanks to Maree from Faith Matters who has me as a regular on the radio. We make a great team!

I also thank God for the inspiration for what I am doing, for opening doors and for confidence in the future.

What positives can you find in your circumstance? I encourage you to acknowledge them and be thankful.