The Quiet Shape of Gratitude: Relearning Gratitude, One Day at a Time
Are you grateful?
I think this is one of the emotions we often undervalue. We forget to be grateful for the things we have, for our family, for our achievements. Mostly because everything becomes so “normal”. We forget to sit down for a second and say: “Wow, my grandma just called and told me she made vegetarian food for me. I’m so grateful she thought of me and prepared something special.”
For the past month I’ve been doing a program called Interior Compass, where each lesson brings me deeper into who I am and who I want to be. I’ve been learning to recognise those positive emotions that sometimes get buried under the heavy ones. Emotions like joy, curiosity, serenity, hope, inspiration, awe, love, confidence, pride. And it made me realise how difficult it was for me to name all these emotions.
Our vocabulary for positive feelings is so outdated compared to the negative ones. They take up more space, especially when you’re in a period where everything feels heavy and dark.
Gratefulness is an emotion I’m still learning to feel fully.
Some days it’s easy. Other days it feels far away. But I’m starting to notice the small things: the warmth of the sun after days of rain, a message from someone I love, the way the birds sing in the morning. Tiny moments I used to ignore.
I wonder if, in a world where we are constantly rushing and always chasing the next thing, we simply forget to be grateful for what we already have. We forget to sit in silence with our thoughts and feelings, to embrace them fully, to feel them deeply. We forget that beauty and gratitude are always there, quietly waiting, and that sometimes we just need to be open enough to let them glow through our body. To let them spark that part of us we sometimes forget exists. Gratitude can show up in many ways; it can be loud, but it can also be soft and quiet. We just have to stop for a moment and let that feeling slowly rise within us.
This week it happened during a day that felt especially heavy. I had a really tough time at school, you know those days when you prepare something to teach and everything falls apart? You spend most of the lesson trying to get the kids’ attention, and just when you finally feel ready to start… the bell rings. Everyone goes home and you’re left there thinking you haven’t achieved anything.
Later, I was walking to give a private English lesson to a girl in my village. And while I was walking, I suddenly felt that spark of gratitude rising in me. Gratitude for this girl who keeps giving me the strength to go on, who reminds me why I love teaching, and who helps me switch off my worries for a little while and focus only on her.
I’m learning to listen to my body, to notice how it feels, to be more present and grateful, especially for those little things we often overlook.
I’m also grateful for the moments where my thoughts finally rest, and I found that in macramé. I’ve recently started making hanging pieces, and I’m absolutely in love with it. It's like therapy for me. During that time all I do is focus on the knots. Nothing else exists, just the patterns and the ideas I want to try. This kind of quiet therapy is priceless, and I’m so grateful I found something that clears my mind and fills me with a gentle kind of joy.
Maybe today you can find one small thing to be grateful for too.
Something simple. Something gentle. Something that makes your heart feel a little lighter.
And if it feels hard, that’s okay too. Gratitude doesn’t need to shout. Sometimes it’s just a whisper inside you, reminding you that even in the chaos, there is still beauty worth noticing.
