A few weeks ago on Easter, I watched a documentary recommended by my friend Kristian Martinow (with whom BTW I recorded an epic podcast interview with, check it out :) In it, 12 indigenous elders from different cultures around the world we’re summoned to gather a the United Nations HQ in New York to heal Mother Earth. With all that’s happening now this is a very powerful film — exploring nature, community, and spirituality — and while watching it something clicked that has really brightened my perspective.

Watching the movie with my own mother, she said something to me that really hit deep. “The one thing they all have in common is gratitude.” For nature, for their communities, and for each other - each one of these wise people — with all their elaborate traditions, cultural practices, and rituals — from around the globe shared a common quality of appreciation for life and the mysterious power at the root of it.

After it was over I went outside, and looking up at the cloudy gray sky, around at the house I grew up in, over at the trees and then imagining the great blue marble underneath my feet, an overwhelming feeling of peace and joy came over me.

I hopped in the car with my sister. It was also my grandmother’s birthday and we were picking up pizzas for a physically-distanced party (#COVID) - and I had a gush of energy rush through me. My ear and throat (which have been giving me hearing and speaking difficulties the last few years) opened up, my chest swelled with air, a huge smile came across my face, and we sang and talked all the way there and back. It was the best I’d felt in months (energetically, mentally, physically). I kept looking at the sky, at my sister, and at the road ahead.

There was nowhere else I would’ve rather been, in that moment. And the rest of the day kept up in the same way — seeing family, riding my bike, making cacao, taking a bath (for the first time in years too!) I felt I did so much that day, and still felt refreshed when it came time for bed.

From that point on gratitude has been an integral part of my daily practice. Whenever I used to hear people talk about gratitude or gratitude journals, it always sounded so simple, too simple to have any practical effect on my daily live. Like of course, I’m grateful right? Of course, I love life, and all that supports it, right?

But rather than assume this to be true, the last few weeks have been an effort to consciously put my attention on the things I’m grateful for, as well as the feelings this acknowledgement evokes. I’ve found it to be one of the simplest and most effective ways to get out of my head and into my heart.

And I don’t just mean this metaphorically. I mean literally, the pressure inside the upper regions of my body has been easing, helping me to think and speak more clear and fluidly than I have in years. When I place in my mind what I’m grateful for, and embrace that thought with a big warm love-filled imaginary hug, a warm and opening sensation ripples through my torso and plants me in the present moment.

One of the biggest obstacles in life is thinking and dwelling so much on the things that aren’t right, and how to fix them, that we lose touch with the things that are so right, and always will be. The things that give support, bring us together, and keep us motivated to keep moving forward and becoming better people.

It’s these things that keep us grounded, that give us a firm foundation to root our being and build the world we truly want to see. Seeing and appreciating things for what they really are, not in the material sense, but in the value they bring — in the life giving, creative, and energetic principle that they exhibit day in and day out — I’m starting to understand, is a really powerful way to connect with health, happiness, and even eternity.