Gratitude practices have become mainstream. Focusing on one’s blessings and setting an intention to look for the good can be a powerful counter force to all the negativity and sensationalized “bad news”. What we look for in our lives whether positive or negative, we will find.

Ask someone to talk about what they are grateful for and they will likely list their family or loved ones, their home, their job, or other material possessions. They may list their health, a best friend, or an amazing experience. These are potentially blessings in that person’s life.

But each of those blessings also require work, responsibility, and a positive intention. Our relationships are vital for our well being but all relationships include effort, communication, conflict resolution, and pouring love into those encounters. A job provides income and at it’s best, a sense of meaning and purpose. But all jobs also involve challenges, stress, sometimes injustice, and insecurity. Maintaining a home and raising a family involves nearly constant effort, dealing with chaos, and a commitment to seeing it through.

So the aspects of our life that we tend to be grateful for are also the aspects of our life that demand the most, demand our best efforts, and challenge us to grow in all sorts of ways. You must show up in these “arenas” and do the work. If you strive to have children, you will work to provide. You will be required to provide materially, physically, mentally, and emotionally. These demands will feel like stress. Stress is essentially the demands that the life we strive for requires. Laundry, cleaning, shopping, cooking, comforting, and caring are the demands.

With this understanding of gratitude and stress (demands), we can reframe our gratitude practice and appreciate that the demands of our lives are evidence of our blessings. As you fold the laundry, appreciate the humans that wore those clothes and lived in a way that dirtied them. As you plan, shop, and prepare the meals, appreciate the resources that provide nourishment and help our bodies to grow, to be strong, and resilient. As you clean your house, appreciate the ability to pour love into your home so that it is a safe, loving, and comfortable space.

Gratitude doesn’t make the stress or demands of daily life go away, but you carry that load a bit differently when you recognize how it is attached to the blessings. Of course, there can be unexpected and overwhelming stress in life. But even those intense challenges come with blessings. You always have the possibility to see the opportunities in the challenges and to grow in stamina, strength, and resilience.

I am grateful for the beautiful demands that this life I have build requires of me.