Our Stories

Sarala

After reading about Rebecca Hansen's experience using a mechanical counter to tally moments of gratitude I just had to try it for myself. Once I tracked down a counter I began to experience what it was like to notice and record moments of gratitude throughout an entire day – not just for five minutes at a time or for a few minutes before bed. I was so excited!

The first day I tallied 35 experiences of gratitude and appreciation. My husband was so intrigued that he bought one for himself. What we discovered was that each day our moments of gratitude became more refined, more detailed. In the first days a walk on the beach was a click, and the sunshine another click but soon each wave became something to marvel at and each warranted a click. The garden we clicked for at first became clicks for each individual flower – then the petals caught our attention. Each step brought joy and everything evoked wonder. We walked through our day experiencing gratitude one 'now' at a time. What joy!

I shared my use of the GratOodle with a group of people at a Feng Shui workshop and one of the woman remarked that it sounded like a great little business. The seed was planted.

Delaney

About a decade ago, when I was very ill and life wasn't very much fun, the simple act of practicing gratitude got me through my days and reminded me that there were, indeed, things in my life worth living for. Some days I had a hard time seeing past the pain to what these good things were, but I still started each day by asking the question, "What am I grateful for right now?".  And oh how hard some of those days were to start. It must have been serendipity - I had stumbled upon a fun little book by SARK titled, Eat Mangoes Naked: Finding Pleasure Everywhere and Dancing with the Pits! which invited me to take my dose of 'Vitamin P' - to just be with what is and notice the pleasures to be found right there where I was. What a miracle that funny book was.  The ever delightful SARK said, "Joy and pleasure really can be escorts through painful times if we let them in".  She was right. And here I am, happy and healed and skipping along through life and into many new and sometimes scary transitions with my newest friend Sarala inviting me into all sorts of fun and new challenges... and reminding me to be grateful for it all along the way!