Today’s gratitude revolves around loved ones – particularly family and friends. Too often in life we don’t take time to stop and acknowledge those special to us, those that we do life with everyday and who make it worth living.

Hot chocolate, churros and beach walks.
My first moment of gratitude is getting the time to go out with my family today and enjoy a treat of hot chocolate, churros and a walk along the beach at Hillary’s Boat Harbour. This has become a little bit of a tradition in our family on holidays and one that I really cherish. The additional bonus today was the stunning weather, despite only being a month into Spring it really was turned on today in Perth with a stunning warm day in the high twenties.

Sharing moments of gratitude at dinner.
Tonight, I tried something different at dinner. Instead of asking the kids for one good thing and one challenging I asked them to think of three things they were grateful for. Love listening to their insights from the day and the reflection afterwards from one of the kids that we probably don’t take as much time as we should thinking of what to be grateful for because there’s always things to be grateful for when we stop and think, but we take it for granted. How true she is. I think I might try to make this more of a tradition each night for the kids.

Dinner with a good friend.
As I sit here writing this I am looking forward to being able to go out and have dinner with one of my closest and oldest friends. I haven’t had the chance to properly hang out and spend time for about six months so know I will have a great time. I am grateful for my wife supporting me in spending time with my friends as well as having friends who I can not see a lot of but always pick things up as if we have not been apart.

Day two of the challenge sees a bit of change of pace with what I am grateful for today, a bit of an eclectic mix from the early morning sunrise while running, an afternoon at the local park with the family, and taking time to feel the grass underneath my feet after getting back from my run.

The Sunrise and Early Morning Runs.
My first moment of gratitude today occurred nice and early. I decided to sleep in past my usual wake up time of 4:40am with me not getting up until 5:15. I still managed to get to Lake Monger to experience a stunning sunrise over a lake of glass as I completed my first 10km run since returning from injury. After I finished the run I would usually get in the car and head straight home, but instead took an additional few minutes to walk around, stop and listen to the sounds of life passing by and appreciate the colours as they continued to change with the break of day. Sunrises are something that I have come to appreciate with my early morning running regime, however still taking the time to be grateful and not take for granted needs to be an ongoing conscious decision from me.

An afternoon at the local park.
The flow of today and being on holidays provided an opportunity to slow down in itself (which is greatly needed in my life). This afternoon I got the chance to head up the road with the family and enjoy each others’ company at the local park. We took a soccer ball, had a bit of a kick and laugh. I am grateful for living in an area where we have access to parks in walking distance and also for the joy there can be in the simple things like going on the new flying fox – especially the seated one which has had its chains wound round and round to have it spin while flying down, or having kids on the rotating swing and a soccer ball being thrown at them.

Feeling the grass between my toes.
I was so inspired from my run this morning that I wanted to spend some time outside in the backyard once I got back home, bare foot just soaking in nature and the sounds of the day. Listening to the various birds that we have come to visit our yard as well as the moisture beneath my toes from the dew was a great moment before getting on with he day. I am grateful for having the time and space to take these moments before the day gets busy, to stop and breathe.

Today marked the first of my gratitude challenge – identifying things that I am grateful for in my life and why. Today definitely had a theme which is called lego.

Building Lego Houses with my kids.
I was sitting in the back room when one of my kids wanted me to show them how to build a lego house. A recent trip to the local library saw us come home with several “How to Build” lego books and, as most parents would attest to, we don’t have all the lego bits that are in these books. I remember always just having to sit down and work out how to build what I wanted using my own creativity and ingenuity with basic blocks rather than having every specific piece. I sat down with a big box of lego and showed the kids how to build a house in this way, how to create a roof and how to hinge the roof so it could easily be opened for them to be able to play with the inside easily without breaking to roof / walls. Doing this really took me back to my childhood and sitting for countless hours building with lego, it was a joy to do it with my kids and to see the excitement on their face with dad being cool and amazing at building things. The house now has a prize place in their “Legoville” on the lego table.
I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do this and sit with my kids building a simple lego house.

Having a generous family.
I got to catch up with my side of the family for afternoon tea down at Scarborough Beach, it was to celebrate mine and one of the kids’ upcoming birthdays. The joy on everyone’s faces as presents were opened (both from the givers and the receivers) was priceless. Ever since we have gotten home, countless hours has been spent playing with new toys, but even more than the actual material gifts, I am grateful to have a family who went out of their way to want to catch up, acknowledge and celebrate the upcoming birthdays.

Freedom to practise my faith.
I live in a country where, on the whole, I can practise my faith without persecution or fear of death. While sitting in Mass this really dawned on me as prayers were being offered for all those who live in war zones / areas of persecution and trouble currently. May I never take for granted the many freedoms that we have here in Australia compared to other places in the world.

Wellbeing and mental health have become really important areas of study and exploration for me over the past few years. My role as a leader in the pastoral care at a high school resulted in me becoming increasingly interested in wellbeing and what practises encourage, improve, and enhance an individual’s ability to “live well” from a holistic perspective. This interest has seen me explore various definitions and explanations of what wellbeing is through additional study and reading of academic papers and studies into what contributes to wellbeing; attending courses and workshops exploring positive education, trauma informed practices such as through the Institute of Positive Education, Berry Street, and Australian Children’s Foundation; watching of TED talks on resilience, grit, self-determination theory, eudemonic vs hedonic wellbeing theories; reading of a variety of books; explored the VIA Character Strengths and their application to improve agency and capacity in individuals; countless conversations with school leaders and psychologists who have more experience and a collective knowledge greater than I could ever gain on my own.

I have taken all of this and tried to work on my own wellbeing through adopting a number of habits and boundaries into my daily routine. I find that when I keep to my routine and habits that it has a positive impact on how I feel about myself and world around me, likewise, when I fall into not regularly doing these practises it has a detrimental impact. I have tried to ensure that these routines cover the five domains of needs:

• Physical.
• Emotional.
• Cognitive.
• Energetic.
• Spiritual.

This has lead to my routine of early rising, running, stretches, prayer, and saxophone practice prior to the day beginning. Despite all of these practises that have been built into my life, it is still easy to fall into the “Negativity Bias” that we all inherently lean towards as human beings. This is something that I have been working on changing in my job through looking for authentic and meaningful ways to affirm students and colleagues, however I feel I can still work on this a lot more and that’s where this challenge I am going to undertake comes in.

I am currently reading “The Resilience Project” and have been reflecting upon the three key elements that Hugh Van Cuylenburg argues are key to promoting wellbeing: Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness. Reading this book hasn’t really given me any significant revelations, but rather has reminded me of other books and TED talks looking at wellbeing though the Pos. Ed. lens whether that be through the Institute of Positive Education, the Berry Street Education Model, reading books by Seligmen, Street, and Brunzell or the TED talk by Br David Steindl-Radst which I have included a link to this talk below:

I am a big believer in needing to live something if you want to be able to share it with others. I am going to challenge myself over this next three months (the remainder of 2024) to work on finding opportunities for gratitude in my personal life and interactions with others. I am not going to necessarily be looking for the big things, but instead focusing on the small, every day experiences and trying to find things to be grateful for in the midst of every day life. The challenge is going to see me do two things:

• Keep on online Gratitude Journal: I am going to take ten minutes at the end of every day to stop and reflect on what I am grateful for on that day. My plan is to keep a record of this as an online gratitude journal.
• Write letters of appreciation / gratitude: One of the strategies written about in “The Resilience Project” was the power of writing letters of gratitude to people for what they have done. I think that as a society we probably don’t acknowledge and show our appreciation for others enough. I am going to work on writing one authentic letter of gratitude to a different person each month. While this doesn’t seem like a lot, it will be a start and I want to see me actually complete the challenge rather than falling short.

These are habits that I would love to become a natural part of the way that I live my life. I know from previous experiences in wanting to add things that it takes small steps – if I do too much too soon I always fall short of what I wanted to do. With this in mind, my posts each day aren’t going to be long winded academic dissertations, rather what I am grateful for and why.

Looking forward to the challenge and seeing how it impacts my wellbeing and outlook on life and the life of those with whom I do life with.