The Quiet Practice of Being Thankful

bertarajayogini
Nov 30
3 min read

There’s a certain hour in the year when the light thins just enough to make you stop and remember. It might sneak in through the window as you’re washing dishes, or slip across the floorboards during a late afternoon walk. This is the season when the world moves toward stillness, and in that stillness there’s a faint whisper reminding us that gratitude isn’t a holiday—it’s a way of holding ourselves upright in the wind.

I’ve lived long enough to know that thankfulness rarely knocks loudly. It is quieter than we expect, tucked inside moments so ordinary we learn to step over them: the warmth of someone calling our name from the other room, the comfort of old shoes by the door, breath rising and falling in the dark as if guided by unseen hands. We are so used to these little mercies that we forget they are miracles performing themselves on repeat.

Sometimes I think we need a whole national holiday just to remind us of what has been here all along. And even then, between the carving of the turkey and the urgency of family chatter, we hurry right past the heart of it. The giving of thanks. The receiving of it, too.

Every yoga class I teach ends the same way. I say, “Take this time to give thanks for your blessings—past, present, and the ones making their way to you.” I say it because I’ve learned that people often forget what they already carry. They remember their worries the way children remember monsters under the bed. But blessings—those drift into the background, absorbed into the wallpaper of our days.

I say it because I once forgot, too.

There were seasons when life pressed so hard against my ribcage that it was all I could do not to collapse inward. I thought being steady meant being strong, but steadiness is something else. It comes from remembering—even when nothing makes sense—that life has a deeper order than what we can see. That somewhere in the chaos, there is a thread being pulled toward our greatest good.

Thankfulness is how we stay connected to that thread.

To be thankful in easy times is a pleasant ritual. To be thankful in the ragged moments—when plans crumble or hearts break or the future draws a blank—that is a practice. One that asks us to stand still for a breath and whisper, without any proof at all: I am blessed, and that is how it is.

There is a subtle alchemy in that. Gratitude doesn’t magically erase hardship, but it shows us the path through it. It reminds the body how to soften. It coaxes the mind out of tight corners. It steadies us long enough for the dust to settle. And in that quiet settling, what rises is often better than anything we could have dreamed on our own.

Blessings aren’t always wrapped neatly. Sometimes they arrive disguised as endings or interruptions or detours that make no sense until we’ve lived far enough past them. Sometimes they come as people who stay. Sometimes as people who leave. Sometimes as a single morning where nothing hurts quite as much as it did the night before.