Newspaper link: Say thanks, take risks to enrich your life
BY RITA WATSON/ Special to The Journal
The legend of the Easter Bunny evolved from the early 1500s with tales of rabbits laying eggs and hiding them in gardens. Eventually parents made nests out of straw hats, placed them in their gardens, and filled them with brightly colored eggs for children to find. The tales have little to do with the Christian holiday, but rather depict a springtime celebration, a time for rebirth. Using a basket, a beautiful vase or a painted flower pot, here are thoughts on how couples may create a “Happy Gratitude” tradition.
You can watch gratitude grow within your home by choosing a special holder to fill with ideas for catching happiness. Our mother, who ran her own antiques shop, was a basket collector. When she turned 92 she gave me two signed Longaberger Baskets dated 1992. Today one sits on a table filled with egg-warmer chicks made by our mother’s mother at the age of 81. And one basket is being filled with gratitude sayings.
How to start? Spend a half an hour one day and find quotes on gratitude and love, either from books or the Internet. You can type a group on a long sheet and cut strips of sayings or tape them to index cards so when one resonates you can put it up on a mirror or the fridge. Every few days add a new quote. Whenever you begin to feel joy slipping through your fingers, reach in to remind yourself to be grateful.
To strengthen relationships, a new article from the Greater Good Science Center, “Is Your Marriage Losing Its Luster,” suggests revealing yourself emotionally, taking an out-of-character risk, and starting a bedtime gratitude ritual.
To make your basket, vase or flower pot more couple-centered, each of you over time can add color index cards designated as “risk,” so that once or twice a month you can pull out a surprise. When you reveal yourself emotionally you are taking a risk by telling someone you love a secret, serious or silly.
A risk can also help spruce up your routines. Add to your gratitude holder such suggestions as going to a karaoke bar and singing, signing up for a couples’ baking class or taking dancing lessons. New experiences are bonding mechanisms and your brain remembers the excitement — which triggers the love hormone.
An offshoot of the gratitude plan is one of the easiest and perhaps the most fulfilling ritual that takes place at bedtime. Think of a different compliment each night that you will share with each other before turning out the lights. A gratitude tradition will plant seeds for lifelong memories.
Rita Watson is an All About You relationship columnist and an incurable romantic.
Coppyright 2014 Rita Watson