FREE Gratitude Jumpstart Guide: Find your Glimmers of Light

Posted December 21, 2025

Sunday December 21, 2025. The Winter Solstice and darkest time of year.

In my part of the world, we indulge ourselves in the privilege of putting up Christmas lights, our human attempt to brighten the dark of winter and bring joy to the hearts of our neighbours.

In Banff, the new moon is past and the winter moon is now waxing. As of today, our days will start lengthening as the sun starts returning to the northern hemisphere.

What’s your strategy for moving through the darkness, literally and metaphorically?

Looking for reasons to be grateful, finding the glimmers of light on the darkness of the horizon is a proven way-finding tool.

Sailors, adventurers, navigators in the 1500’s, at the time of John Cabot had only a few tools to work with: the magnetic compass, the log, the lead line, the quadrant or astrolabe, and dead reckoning.

And they also had their log books and journals to help them stay on track and remember their reasons for being so far from home.

These days, with modern GPS tools, we often feel lost, our way-finding skills may be unhinged, full of distractions, fuzzy thoughts with no proper sense of direction.

My advice, if you are feeling off course and searching for something? Go get yourself some gratitude. Ground yourself in your reasons to be grateful. Pick up a pen and write a list: I am so grateful that… and keep going. Tell yourself a gratitude story. Start by looking for some glimmers. Glimmers are those micro-moments of wonder and awe and something to savour. Mulled cider with cinnamon, sweetened with honey and orange. A smile. A hug from a child. A Swiss chocolate wrapped in red foil. A wintry tree shimmering with lights.

From my work and observations, gratitude may not be the only elevator out of sadness and anxiety, but it can start help to stop the downward spiral.

How do you find gratitude when nothing is going right? It takes discipline and self-love. It’s the work of each of us on our own hero’s journey.

Gratitude gets easier with practice. Like navigating by the stars from a wind-tossed vessel on the deep dark sea, it takes vision and practice to define your current location in this world of change. When we catch sight of and savour our glimmers, we find more reasons to feel grateful. With gratitude, new neural pathways in our brains can open up and we are more open to the gifts that surround us. All. Year. Long.

What else?

Gratitude also opens us up to a deeper sense of belonging.
Gratitude can wire our thoughts along pathways that connect us to the people, places and things that bring us joy.
Gratitude improves our sense of interconnectedness and is good for relationships, uplifts our mood and increases our energy.

The science, the poets, the wise elders of the ages reassure us: Gratitude holds profound and transformative powers — physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

The problem? You can’t just take my word for this. We have to prove it to ourselves. When you find yourself yourself in those grateful moments of wonder and awe, you will know that you are not alone. Yes, you belong here. Meet you there?

Click this link to a Free Download and enjoy a writing your way to a happier, healthier, more resilient you.

Download your free copy of Gratitude Jumpstart Guide – free pdf