As I sat down to write today’s blog post, I noticed a beautiful pattern of sunlight dancing on the wall in front of me. This led me to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of what I was seeing and also to feel grateful. I felt grateful for sunlight, for colours, and for my eyesight. This is pretty typical for me and is a kind of mindfulness practice that I tend to do many times a day.

Then I got a muscle cramp – the kind that seems to happen for no reason as we age. It lasted maybe thirty seconds and disappeared completely. It’s not a big thing to get muscle cramps, but it’s annoying. Then a new thought came to me: what if every annoyance could be turned into a mindful gratitude practice? How might that change the quality of my experience?

Stuff happens that annoys us all the time. Things break. We get delayed. We spill things. People are rude to us. What if, every single time something happens that annoys us, we used that as an opportunity to feel gratitude? It would be much harder to stay annoyed. We would be consciously replacing a negative state with a more positive one. The effects of doing that would accumulate throughout the day.

Here’s an example: the “Check Engine” light went on in my car. Annoying! I ask myself what could I be grateful for that is related to the annoyance. I have a car in the first place. I spend a few moments feeling grateful for having a car at all, what it allows me to do, the freedom it gives me.

Another example: I need a prescription renewed. Annoying. I ask what can I be grateful for around this? I have access to doctors for free. I have access to life-saving drugs. I have health insurance.

It’s a simple practice and one that doesn’t require anything other than some annoyances (and life provides those on a regular basis, for free!)

Try it yourself and see if this little practice shifts your experience of your day. I suspect it will. I’ll be practicing this one for the next week. I’ll report back in here next week.

Remember: string enough mindful moments together and you have a mindful life!