Becoming Grateful Day 19: Make a Gratitude Board

MAKE A GRATITUDE BOARD

Vision boards, or affirmation boards, have been used for a long time to help people reach a goal. The basic idea is to create something visually to help remind you of your dreams of goals and work towards reaching them. I've done this before with New Years' Resolutions, and have found it can be a powerful tool to help me see what I want to achieve. The purpose of doing a vision board is to help you feel now how you want to feel when you reach your goal. Today we'll be using this idea to increase gratitude by making a gratitude board: a collage of images that make us feel grateful and help us continue to be thankful for the many blessings in our lives.

When I began my board, I thought it'd be a quick little craft and I'd be done in a jiffy. I was already late in getting today's post up so I was trying to take any shortcut I could, but I ended up having a really great experience and feeling more gratitude than I expected. Here's what happened...

I started out with my supplies: scissors, adhesive, some pictures of my daughter and husband, a few magazines, and a file folder. I used a file folder because I wanted something larger to paste everything on but didn't want to waste any cute scrapbook paper that would be covered up. Feel free to use whatever you want! You may want to make yours more stylish or cutesie. Do what works for you!

I started cutting out pictures and words of things I'm grateful for or that represented things I appreciate. While I was doing this, I came across a story in the Ensign from August about a man named Rhette Wintch who was diagnosed with cancer. He shared that as he went though treatments and this difficult time in his life, it taught him gratitude, courage, and an appreciation for the Savior, Jesus Christ. The word gratitude was what caught my eye in the first place and led me to read the story. As I read what he said about feeling an increase of gratitude, I began to feel more emotional and an overwhelming feeling of gratitude myself. He said:

 “People, no matter who they are, now have immense worth to me.”

That phrase seemed so significant to me. Because of gratitude, he saw people differently, no matter who they were. I thought it would be a great feeling to look at people and value them regardless of how they look, their money or where they work, but to see their great worth. Through his experiences, the man also wrote:

“I have more desire to be an influence for good to all my family, friends, and work associates.” 

More gratitude led him to have a desire to change his behavior and want to do more good in his life. So there I was trying to find images of things I was grateful for, thinking it would be like a nice warm fuzzy, and I found myself being overwhelmed with thankfulness. (Remember the post from Day 11: Read about people who are grateful?) The story, although short and simple, seemed so profound to me. The gratitude he felt led him to have appreciation for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I looked at some of the pictures I had cut out already, including an image of the Savior. I too began to feel an increasing appreciation for the Savior's Atonement and found myself crying, surrounded by tape backing and paper scraps, my daughter next to me on the bed probably wondering what my deal was. 

As I finished up my own gratitude board, I realized that each time I look at it, along with the gratitude I feel for each thing I put in the collage, I'll remember the experience I had while making it and be even more grateful. I'm thankful I read the story and was able to have the experience I did.

(Read the story "Grateful for Life" yourself here.)

Here's my gratitude board. In the center I put pictures of my beautiful daughter Liberty, a wedding photo with my husband who I love dearly, and an image of Jesus Christ. I've surrounded it with other images that represent something I'm thankful for:

Star cluster: I'm grateful for God's creations and the world we live in.
Pioneers: Gratitude for my pioneer ancestors, their faith and sacrifice.
Pasta & Oranges: Food! And that my family doesn't ever go hungry.
Piggy Bank & Stack of Money: No, not just for money! But for the ability we have to afford the things we need and provide for our needs.
Bed: I'm thankful for a warm bed and a safe home.
Canned food: I'm thankful for my mom who makes the best canned salsa! I remember cutting up peaches with her for canning too, so this represents all the things I'm grateful to my mom for teaching me.
Angel Moroni: I love this image of a steeple on an LDS Temple in the sunset. I'm thankful for the blessing of the temple, especially my marriage sealing and the promise of eternal families.
Woman at the Well: I love this painting and the one-on-one teaching the Savior is giving. This story in the scriptures is one of my favorite as Jesus tells the woman who He is.

I've hung my gratitude board on the back of my front door. This way I'll see it every time I go out, and I hope when friends or family visit, they'll ask about it and I can share with them what I'm grateful for.

So take a little time today to make your own gratitude board. If you printed any pictures you took from Day 14, you've already got a head start. One way to involve your family is to turn your refrigerator door into your family's gratitude board. This is great for children of all ages since your teenagers can reach the space at the top, and smaller hands can stick their pictures lower on the door. Every time you're reaching in for a dinner ingredient, glass of milk, or putting away left-overs, each person will see the collage and feel thankful. If you have very young children, have them draw pictures of things they are thankful for or what makes them happy. I hope you'll find yourself, like me, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for all the amazing blessing you have!