What fills your cup? This month, focus on gratitude.
Most Sunday nights, promptly at 5pm, you can find me and my family at our favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was a pre-pandemic routine that we’ve since settled back into, thanks to their robust outdoor set-up. I always get a glass of Cava and fish tacos, my husband usually gets something healthier or a lobster roll, and the boys alternate between french fries, fruit and quesadillas or grilled chicken and broccoli. We end the meal with chocolate pudding and -- weather permitting -- take a stroll around the neighborhood before heading home for bath and bedtime.
On our latest visit, we walked around the neighborhood looking at Halloween decorations after dinner. Many of the brownstones in our neighborhood go all-out. There were skeletons hanging from 2nd floor windows, intricate spider webs in bushes, and witches flying on broomsticks. There were steps lined with pumpkins and mums, and ghosts floating from invisible wire. My husband hoisted our 3 year old on his shoulders, and I did the same with our not-so-little babe. He giggled as I bounced him up and down, pointing out some twinkling purple lights and Jack-o-lanterns.
While the food was the same (delicious as always) and the routine hadn’t changed much, there’s something about this particular night that has stuck with me. Perhaps it was the weather, those first few days of fall that signal a new chapter. Perhaps it's because it was the first time we resumed our Sunday routine since my father in law lost his battle with cancer. Whatever the cause, I’ve felt a profound sense of gratitude for that moment. The simplicity of it. The innocence of my babes and our good fortune to be together with full bellies and nowhere in particular to be. And that feeling is still lingering. I want to bottle it up and keep it for days that feel overwhelming.
Gratitude this time of year can often feel forced. As we head into the holiday season and begin to be bombarded with commercialized appeals to our family traditions, it can be easy to feel like “gratitude” is a sweater to put on now, and strip off when the day -- or season -- ends. This month, we want you to step into your gratitude and linger. Look into yourself and look around you. Don’t feel pressure to be grateful because someone’s telling you to, but really explore what gratitude means for you. What’s irreplaceable in your life? What do you feel others expect you to be grateful for, but perhaps doesn’t fit you anymore? How can you build your life and your career in a way that allows for your gratitude to flourish in all its authenticity? How can you make gratitude a daily practice?
This month we’re bringing gratitude into all our efforts this month. We’ll have a piece from our founder Melissa on a new meditative practice that’s changed her life, grounding. We’ll also have a breakdown of all-things NFTs and deep-dive into what all the social misinformation means for you [VERY grateful we’re not the ones trying to figure out that cluster…]. We also have another installment of our Power of Influence series, this time with a look at the proliferation of digital advisor influencers [including us?] and how they are helping creators across all subject categories.
As always, our contributors are killing it this month. Megan Collins of The Manicured Shelf is back with her hand-picked reading list, and resident DJ Lissie Jacobson shares a gratitude playlist that is sure to be the soundtrack to all your days this month.
We hope you join us this month in cultivating your own gratitude. Not just what you think you should be grateful for, but what really fills your cup and feels authentic to you. Maybe it’s a friend, a promotion, a leap of faith. What is a moment you want to bottle up, to savor, and save for those days when life seems a bit overwhelming? We’ll be exploring these themes right along with you, and as always, cheering you on.