Five Ideas for Practicing Gratitude. {#3}

Well hello November and hello to you dear listener and reader! This podcast is titled ‘Hello November’ and is Episode #3 on the listening list. It includes a free coloring page download, info on the global art swap and 5 ideas for practicing gratitude.Welcome to A Creative Connection with Nature and this little corner of mine in the online world with me, Louise Gale. I am a Mixed Media Artist and most of my time here will be spent sharing the little creative ways I weave nature into my art practice. I will also be exploring and sharing little snippets of inspiration for you to explore your own.Read the written post at https://louisegale.substack.com/So what does November bring for you? I always feel that in November we are called to focus on being even more thankful and exploring ways we can give and receive heart energy around the world.Gratitude connects us to the present moment and can be as simple as noting down 3 things (in the morning and then again at night) that have made you smile, or that you are thankful for.Being grateful and noticing every little detail of what is beautiful in our life and world, enables us to radiate more positive energy. This positive energy helps us feel good about ourselves and the world around us. It becomes a habit, a practice, a way to live every day.By taking time to do this, it slows us down, enables us to notice beauty in the everyday and most importantly to help radiate positive energy within us. By consciously thinking or writing down what we are grateful for, we will be collectively sending good energy out into the world. Image: Heart Stone found in Woodstock, US (a creative weekend away with my friends when living in America)When we are grateful and open our hearts everyday:* We start to find good energy flows back to us in various ways.* We begin to see the good in everything and everyone.* We notice the opportunities from all of our experiences.* The glass is always full.* The energy of what we are thinking and feeling will always be reflected back to us.* There is always an opportunity to learn and grow and take the positive.So in addition to the points I just noted, here are a couple of other ways we can invite gratitude in over the coming month and get a little creative too!#1: Download my November Nature Inspired Coloring PageOn the first of every month, I share a printable colouring page that you can download and color in. Since creating my own colouring books and printables, I have found this a lovely way to invite some calm into my day. If I have many other commitments, then I can spend simply 10 minutes colouring in to flex my creative muscles!  Share short colouring videos over on my TikTok and YouTube shorts if you want to follow along. Download yours here. https://louisegale.substack.com/#2: Join my November Postcard Swap!Your heART really does make a difference and receiving a gorgeous postcard through the mail makes even more of a difference to each and every person in our creative community who join the swap. I host these 3-4 times a year.heART exchange is a global art swap to create, share & receive LOVE in the form of gorgeous pieces of postcard sized artworks. Each person who joins the swap is given 3 people to send their creations to and the only rule, is that you create with your heart open and include a positive note for the recipients on the back of your postcard or as a little love note inside.Above: Mother (Michelle Kennedy Rembert) and daughter take part together to send and receive postcard love around the world I started this lovely postcard swap back in 2010 when I also wrote a blog called ‘Your heART Makes a Difference” which explored the energy of our hearts and how we could share more good energy through creativity and heart energy. The blog, alas no longer exists, thanks to a hacker!I am so happy to still host the global heART swap and also have 3 ebooks I created with all the contributors to that website available in my Creative Library (free goodies when you subscribe) Peek below.So if you are interested in joining in, we also have a Facebook Community here where you can connect with other art swappers and share your postcard art!#3: Start your own gratitude practice.Grab yourself a blank journal and simple write in it once or twice a day. First thing in the morning: When you wake up, set your intention for the day by recognising 3 things that you are grateful for. This could be something as simple and fundamental as waking up, the sun shining, a day of possibility ahead.Last thing at night: Write 3 things in your journal you are grateful for to close off the day. These can be things that the day brought you or general thankfulness for what you have. If you are feeling a creative spark with your gratitude practice, create a beautiful journal page using your art materials and write what you are thankful for in a creative way. A little heads up here also - My 30 Days of Gratitude offering is getting a ‘10 year anniversary’ makeover, so I hope to offer that again to you sometime in 2025.Image: A journal page focusing on gratitude which is one of the lessons in my Spring Clean Your Life class.#4: Grab a copy of ‘The Magic’ by Rhonda ByrneIf you are looking for a way to invite gratitude into your life on a daily basis and would like some prompts or more guidance, I would highly recommend ‘The Magic'. I have worked through this book a couple of times already and it is an amazing book to revisit. Especially wonderful if you take it with you and sit out in nature somewhere!Image: Reading ‘The Magic’ at the beach in Spain.In this book, you are taken on a 28 day journey to recognise all the amazing things already in your life. If you understand the Law of Attraction, then you will know that this daily practice will essentially attract more goodness. It is life changing.#5: Celebrate the joys of the seasonThe Creative Connection with Nature post coming mid-month is all about being inspired by Leaves and that post will be full of creativity! So below is a little snippet of inspiration to get the month started! Let’s get outside and celebrate the joys of the season in the area where you live. Take some lovely slow walks, spend time in nature, soak up the chilly mornings and darkening skies in the afternoons as we begin to cosy up inside the winter months ahead. Images: Some creative ways to connect to the season; make a nature collection, press petals and leaves, draw a Botanical Mandala or sketch little motifs on cards.If you’ve read (or listened) this far, I want to let you know how grateful I am that you make space inside your inbox and day for my newsletters.I would LOVE to hear from you, so please do comment with 3 things you are grateful for or any thoughts on what kind of creative inspiration you would like me to share with you going forward.Thank you for supporting the work I do by subscribing. I hope I can continue to inspire.Thanks for reading Creative Connection with Nature - by Artist Louise Gale! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit louisegale.substack.com