Shift in Perspective: The Experiment

Every night before going to sleep, write down three people, places, or things for which I am grateful.

When I first began this experiment with santosha, I sometimes needed a few moments of thought to come up with three things to add to the list. But as I moved further into the experiment and began truly embodying the practice, not only did it become easier to come up with three things, some days it was difficult to only write three down. There were a few days I was so overwhelmed by gratitude I had to write down five or more things just so as to not neglect feeling or explicitly expressing gratitude. I knew things had shifted when I felt myself getting fired up in traffic one day and I was able to talk myself back from the brink by reframing the situation and mentally thanking the person in front of me (going 45 in a 65) for the opportunity to practice patience. Usually those people just get the finger, not my gratitude.