As we approach this Thanksgiving holiday, especially THIS year, it might be helpful to think about different aspects of 鈥淭hanksgiving,鈥� including being grateful, generous, and mindful.

Perhaps I鈥檓 noticing them more this year because of the environment we鈥檙e in, but I have seen several more influencers, webinars, podcasts, and posts about being happy that recommend being grateful, giving back, and reflecting on what鈥檚 important to us.

Coursera even offered, for free, .

One of my favorite speakers on mindset, Tiffany Peterson, offers .  Peterson invites a different guest speaker each week to talk about what gratitude and generosity mean to them and how those two practices have shaped and improved their lives.  The course is her way of giving back to the community each year and helps frame the end of year for listeners.

Peterson shares that the two 鈥渉old hands in her mind鈥� and that it is difficult to find someone who is both happy and ungrateful.  鈥淭he math just doesn鈥檛 add up.鈥�  She encourages us to practice daily habits of gratitude, including sending cards or texts to people in our lives to share our appreciation for them. 

This idea of being generous, of giving back, can be especially practiced during the holiday season.  Charitable organizations typically hold their annual fundraising events and donation drives during the last couple of months of the year and count on year-end donations to see them through the next fiscal year.  In addition to the holiday gift giving and Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales, there is Giving Tuesday, a concept that reminds us to focus on helping others, rather than being solely focused on acquisition and purchases.

At our recent staff retreat, the team was asked to participate in a Thankful Exercise.  Each member was asked to answer one of several prompts, including: 鈥淚鈥檓 thankful when I hear____________,鈥� 鈥淚鈥檓 thankful for these living things ____________,鈥� and, possibly the most mind-shifting, 鈥淚 am thankful for these things I learned during COVID-19.鈥�  These would be great questions to ask on Thanksgiving, as we devote an entire day to being grateful.

2020 is quickly coming to a close.  How we choose to end the year will directly impact how we begin 2021.  Whether you do a favor for a friend, buy coffee for the stranger in line behind you, donate clothing or food to a shelter or animal hospital, or give cash to your favorite charity, being mindful of all the good we have experienced and paying it forward through generosity can only bring joy and peace.

Happy Holidays.

Jennifer is 优蜜视频鈥檚 Marketing and Communications Coordinator. She has been working to spread the word about 优蜜视频 and the needs of gifted children for the past three years and, in the process, has learned a great deal about herself and the gifted children in her life.

As many of you did, I spent Thanksgiving week thinking a great deal about gratitude. There are a multitude of things for which I am truly grateful 鈥� my family, friends, my wonderful job, and the comfort in which I am able to live 鈥� but they seem to fall into the category of Thanksgiving clich茅s. This, of course, does not render my objects of gratitude unimportant, but after decades of pondering thankfulness, my story hasn鈥檛 changed much. This year, though, I began thinking about gratitude a little differently.

The day before Thanksgiving, I took a yoga class. When the session had ended, the teacher encouraged us to think about things we were grateful for within ourselves. My mind quickly began to reel. I am grateful for my determination and hard work, I thought. I am grateful for the love I show my family and friends. I am grateful for my mind. I am grateful for my commitment to causes I believe in.

This exercise helped me to think about gratitude more deeply. Not only am I grateful for my niece and nephew who bring endless joy and love into my life, but I am grateful for the way my niece clings to me when she is tired or scared or sick 鈥� she feels safe with me. I am grateful for the smile on my nephew鈥檚 face when I walk into his house, and I even cherish the tears that pool in his eyes when I must leave, because I know he loves me and does not want to watch me go.

And not only am I grateful for my amazing job at 优蜜视频, but I am grateful for all of the enlightening things I鈥檝e learned and experienced since starting here:

• I am grateful to know that I am not weird; I don鈥檛 have a problem; I鈥檓 not alone.
• I am grateful to know that bursting into tears for 鈥渘o reason鈥� is not a sign of an emotional unbalance that needs to be 鈥渃ured.鈥�
• I am grateful to be ; it is this intensity that makes up much of who I am.
• I am grateful for my mind, but I am also grateful to know that I am more than my mind.
• I am grateful to have found my tribe.
• I am grateful to be able to touch the lives of kids who are like I was as a child.
• I am grateful to be able to constantly learn more about myself as I learn about the kids we serve.
• I am grateful for the opportunity to learn more about how I can help my gifted nephew, who at first just seemed way too smart for his own good, and my niece, whose sensory processing issues made the world a very scary and overwhelming place for her for awhile.
• I am grateful to work for an organization that embraces my quirks and knows that many of these things are what make me good at what I do.
• I am grateful to work for an organization where my passions are encouraged and supported.
• I am grateful to be challenged each and every day.
• I am grateful for the daily variety and surprises that come with working at 优蜜视频.
• I am grateful for the amazing, talented, compassionate, supportive, and considerate colleagues with whom I work every day; we truly have an amazing team at 优蜜视频.
• I am grateful to have been encouraged to find balance in my life.
• I am grateful for the increased reach and impact of my work at 优蜜视频, and I am grateful that more families are able to find what I have found here.
• I am grateful for all of the parents who come to us because they know their children are different and require something more.
• I am grateful to be able to speak up on behalf of kids who are often misunderstood and don鈥檛 get the right attention.
• I am grateful to meet others who care about this population of neglected children as much as I do.
• I am grateful for the opportunity to have an impact on the world.
• I am grateful to be gifted.

At the Annual Bradley Seminar this year, 优蜜视频 President Elizabeth Jones encouraged us to keep gratitude journals. I thought it was a great idea and began one, but I found I was always saying the same things. This Thanksgiving, I made a resolution to think deeply about gratitude over the coming year. Consider this the first entry in my new gratitude journal, and let this one reflect the empowerment that accompanies gratitude for elements of one鈥檚 self and life that are often overlooked. In addition to being grateful for my mom鈥檚 love and my niece鈥檚 smile, I will let myself be grateful for the things that make me who I am and for the circumstances I have worked hard to create for myself. I will also make gratitude a priority year-round, not just a Thanksgiving Day activity. I would encourage you to do the same.

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