How can we inculcate an attitude of gratitude. It is not easy, as the brain automatically slips back into negative bias, without sufficient conditioning. While it may appear that there is no change, often seeds of thoughts are sown with these games, which ripen at the right time.
Body related games:
Blindfold all the participants ( in a safe space) and ask them to carry on with their regular tasks for half an hour. Then talk about how the eye is just a small part of our body.
Ask the participants to not use their thumb for an hour or so, as they write, paint, fold clothes, brush, lift objects, play games, etc. This can be imaginary where the facilitator tells them what to do, or it could be real activities.
Ask the participants to imagine that the body does not respond to thoughts, or to imagine that digestion, breathing, etc does not happen on its own and has to be done consciously. Ask them to imagine how their day would then be.
Universe related games:
Ask participants to think about the fact that we live on a ball suspended in the middle of space with comets, asteroids, etc moving about, and how grateful we could be that we are all alive and thriving.
Fortune related games:
Ask the participants to imagine they were in a war torn country, or did not have resources to get food for themselves and their family members, or did not have any family members, friends or relatives to turn to.
Interdependence related games:
Ask the participants to make a list of events and the dependency of that event on other events for a simple act as drinking a cup of tea. One can them easily imagine how grateful we need to be for every single even that is occurring in our lives.
one would need tea leaves for which there has to be a farmer, land, technology, the right amount of sun, water, shade, earthworms, microorganisms in the soil, fertilisers, machines for processing the leaves, people for operating the machines, people who invented the machines, technology for drilling the ores that made the machine possible, etc etc
then one would need milk, water, sugar, which would need similar inputs as above
one would also need something to cook in, gas/ source of energy and the stove
If you can think of more such games, do share in comments. :)
Gratitude to Julia Sakelli for uploading this image on pexels. I don't know her and yet we are now connected. :)
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