Let’s Create a Wave of Intentional Gratitude, Mutual Appreciation & Affirming Conversations to Transform our lives, circles & world for good!
After over 15 years brewing, a special initiative (that we are temporarily calling “The Gratitude Wave Project” for lack of a better more original way to call it right this minute lol) took a big step forward today, April 22nd 2017, thanks to participants at the Magnificat Broward who became the first group who have done us the great honor of integrating our appreciation cards into their April Women’s Breakfast for participants to use and enjoy.
MISSION & PURPOSE
The mission of the Gratitude Wave Project is to simply encourage each other to get more intentional about habitually seeing, expressing and celebrating the good in each other.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Some of us may say that beyond being a beautiful virtue, GRATITUDE is also an OPPORTUNITY. Makes sense considering the abundance of scientific research proving and documenting countless benefits for those who choose to get intentional about living in gratitude, benefits which in turn enhance every dimension of life: professional, personal, situational, relational, global.
WHERE WE’RE HEADED, TOGETHER…
We will be creating and sharing different tools and resources to aid us in the process of expressing and exchanging appreciation more intentionally and habitually. As we do this more and more, we may come closer to building and seeing ourselves living in a world where gratitude and mutual respect and appreciation are more and more commonly seen and experienced while also personally experiencing the many positive fruits and benefits that growing in the art of choosing and exchanging gratitude offers.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
Are the concepts of gratitude or exchanging appreciation , or perhaps even exercises like this brand new? Absolutely not, we know better! Are we excited about adding ourselves to the many who have in one way or another put forth efforts to help encourage and nurture a culture of love, life and possibilities by doing our little bit to “intentionalize” and expand the appreciation exchange process a little more to hopefully make gratitude more of an integral part of our every day thinking and interactions down to our smallest daily choices? You bet!
While more tools and resources are coming, the centerpiece of this movement is our ‘Appreciation Exchange Cards’.
Inspired by a similar gratitude exercise heard about over 15 years ago except using index cards, practiced informally with family/friends since. These cards are an attempt at helping facilitate appreciation exchanges with colorful cards designed especially for those exchanges while allowing for for multiple use versatility beyond the ‘Appreciation Exchange”.
So how does this ‘appreciation exchange’ go? See below…
THE APPRECIATION EXCHANGE (PROCESS/STEPS)
- Gather your people! Whether family meal, special occasions with friends or just because.
- Have one card per person. If it’s a sit down dinner these can double as place cards!
- Write name of each person on front of the card. Ask about our card customization services, including Calligraphy.
- Cards get passed around.
- Each person writes either one thing they admire or some other positive thing they have noticed about the person whose name is on front of the card.
- When everyone has had a chance to write on everyone’s cards, each card is read aloud, turning the moment into a celebration of the greatness in each of the persons present. Reading can be done by either by one person or several. Make it more fun by randomly assigning each person to read aloud a card that’s not theirs. The reading part may be done privately if conditions don’t allow for reading aloud, and will be beneficial, though we have found in pilot runs of the process that participants have reported the most powerful experiences when the reading was done aloud and in it their gifts were being acknowledged and celebrated publicly.
- Each person takes their card home as a reminder of the exchange and the goodness and beauty that is in them and others do see and appreciate!
MULTIPLE USES/ APPLICATION IDEAS
Anytime is a good time to take a moment to tell someone about all the good we see in them, and in it remind them that they are a gift that doesn’t go unnoticed. Anytime is a great time to celebrate what’s good and beautiful about each other, together!
- AT HOME: Nightly Family Dinner, Special Gatherings, Big Holidays, Picnic in the Park, Dessert Night.
- SOCIAL: Wedding rehearsal dinners, Housewarming, New Year’s Parties, Birthdays, Special Gatherings, Big Holiday Dinners, Bon Voyage / Moving, Graduation
- SPORTS: Team gatherings, victory celebrations, after tournament team appreciation (win or lose!)
- AT WORK: Employee appreciation day, Staff Meetings, Corporate retreats, Retirement
- AT YOUR NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION: Staff or Volunteer Appreciation Events, break the ice at other donor appeal meetings
- AT CHURCH: Retreats, celebrations, Ministry Meetings, Office Staff Appreciation, Communions, Confirmations
- WHEREVER PEOPLE COULD USE HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT: Nursing home, hospital…
- WHAT OTHER uses can you think of? The possibilities are endless!
We can simply use the cards for individual use apart from group use anytime we want to thank, appreciate or celebrate someone.
JUST A START… POSITIVE RIPPLE EFFECTS AHEAD!
May these little cards bless you and those who choose to share them with in big ways. And may they be just a start, while also serving as a good exercise to develop our positivity/appreciation/gratitude muscles in ways that sharpen our vision to better see all the goodness that’s all around yet sometimes can be easily missed when we are too focused on everything else. And may this renewed vision strengthen us into people of possibilities and victory who carry the weather with us no matter where we go, what we do or who/what is there in contagious ways that feed the strength and hope of everyone we meet. Together we can do this!
GETTING YOUR CARDS
In our commitment to do our little bit to make exchanging appreciation convenient, easy and widely accessible, we will be offering templates for FREE DOWNLOAD here, because building each other up is priceless!
Printed appreciation cards for those who may enjoy the convenience or simply wish to support the project are available at
- Gifts of Faith in Brandon FL
- Live events
- Retailers interested in carrying our line contact gobeyondtheword@gmail.com
FREE DOWNLOADS
- Thankful for you / Blue Dots
- More to come!
HAVE GRATITUDE, WILL TRAVEL: THE CONVERSATION
We will gladly visit your workplace or non-profit organization to be a part of your team retreat or simply to go through the ‘Appreciation Cards’ exercise while entering into reflections and key conversations about the gratitude opportunity and its benefits. We will be exchanging ideas and tools to grow in the art of practicing intentional gratitude more actively and consistently, opportunities to find and celebrate the good we see in each other to turn ordinary every day scenarios into extraordinary encounters and special occasions, and much more. Prepare to walk away both affirmed in the gift that you are, as well as energized and inspired, renewed in our purpose to be the difference we wish to see and in it help create not just thriving workplaces/organizations where teamwork is genuine and effective as it can only be built on trust, mutual respect and appreciation, but also a better world as those ripple effects reach our homes and communities for good and vice-versa.
BEYOND THE WORD 