That one choice converted into action recast the texture of all his professional interactions and inspired him to enlist his patients to assist in their own healing. An elementary school teacher, using a design she learned here at our teaching center, gathered her class into a gratitude circle. All the children were invited to express appreciation for a person or an event and to make that appreciation concrete and clear by sharing specific details. Initially, many students had to think for several moments, sometimes even minutes, before they could locate something in their lives for which they could be grateful. Now, these weekly sessions have become one of the more lively and happy activities in the class.
Some students use the time to express appreciation for each other.
Others now have their families doing gratitude circles at the dinner table. We can discover an endless array of objects, circumstances and people to appreciate. We begin by making a simple choice to become aware and thankful. We can find it anyplace. We can invoke the feeling any time.