A New Take on Gratitude

David Stamation, Executive Life Coach

Most people think gratitude is about staying positive but what if it’s actually a mirror for your inner world? This reflection offers a deeper way to use gratitude, not as a mood boost, but as a powerful tool for awareness when life (and you) go off track.

Gratitude is one of the simplest and most powerful practices I know. Not because it’s polite or positive, but because it’s orienting. It brings you back into relationship with what’s already working, what’s already here, what’s already alive in you.

The exercise itself is deceptively simple:

Each day, write down three things you’re grateful for. Be specific. Feel them in your body. Let them land.

But the real work begins when you don’t want to do it.

Notice what shows up when you go off track:

• You rush through it.

• You repeat the same surface-level items.

• You skip a day. Then two. Then a week.

• You think, “This is stupid. I already know what I’m grateful for.”

  
  

That resistance is gold.

It tells you something about your inner state. Often, going off track coincides with stress, disappointment, resentment, or feeling unseen. Gratitude becomes hard precisely when you’re in contraction when your nervous system is braced, when your story is, “I’m alone in this.”

This is where the practice stops being motivational and becomes transformational.

When gratitude feels inaccessible, don’t force positivity. Instead, get curious:

• What am I protecting myself from feeling?

• Where am I tight, closed, or guarded?

• What story am I telling about what’s missing?

Sometimes the most honest entry is:

“I’m grateful I noticed I don’t want to do this today.”

That’s presence and awareness.

Gratitude isn’t about bypassing pain. It’s about staying in relationship with your life, especially when it’s messy, disappointing, or uncertain. Going off track isn’t failure. It’s feedback.

And every time you return, you’re practicing something far deeper than thankfulness.

You’re practicing choice.