TUESDAY: HOME GRATITUDE

“What a miserable thing life is: you’re living in clover, only the clover isn’t good enough.”

Playwright Bertolt Brecht, from the play Jungle of Cities, 1924

Today is home gratitude day. Find as many things as you can that you are thankful for in your home: your family, your pets, your garden, plants, neighbors or community, your teenager’s room (there’s a challenge!) or that your home is a haven. Be creative! Roam around your home and find as many things as you can. Make it a family game. Who can come up with the most things for which to be grateful!

If you hear yourself saying, “I wish I had a new sofa or that the plumbing was fixed,”—catch yourself. Instead, say “I am so thankful we have a sofa and I am saving to have my perfect sofa one day!” Or “at least we have water.” Or “this roof does not leak and we are warm in cold weather.” If your roof does leak—then be thankful there are parts that do not leak! Remember, you are finding things for which to be thankful, not to complain about. And a complaint is a great opportunity to practice reframing!

There is a wonderful Australian movie called The Castle, in which a family who lives at the end of the runway of one of Australia’s biggest airports fights to stop their house from being condemned. It is an ugly house on a lead-filled block but to this family, it’s a home. Daryl, the father, makes a very poignant speech about how their house is not a house—it is a home in which love, harmony and joy abound.

It really doesn’t matter what your house is like—what’s important is how much of a home you have created. A home full of love, joy and gratitude is a happy home—even if it needs work.

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