What is Grateful Living?

Grateful living brings the abundant gifts of gratitude to life – in all the moments of our lives. It is a way of life that invites us to take nothing for granted, cultivating awareness of and appreciation for the fullness of our lives. Living gratefully helps us awaken to the opportunities that are always available – even in the most challenging times – to learn, grow, and extend ourselves with compassion to ourselves, others, and the world. As we endeavor to notice our inner and outer landscape with wider eyes, we deepen our engagement and embrace of life in all its poignancy and preciousness. We come alive, opening up to wonder, joy, and love.

Guiding principles serve as comforting and catalyzing touchstones to help us live gratefully:

  • Life Is a Gift. 
  • Everything Is Surprise.
  • The Ordinary Is Extraordinary. 
  • Appreciation Is Generative. 
  • Love Is Transformative. 

A simple guiding practice helps us to cultivate greater presence, perspective, and possibility:

  • Stop. Look. Go. 

With the support of these guiding pathways, grateful living weaves practices in many forms throughout all of our moments, which makes us more resilient and available to life. Moving through life with a grateful heart uplifts us, makes a difference for others, and helps change the world.

How Can I Explore More?

A Network for Grateful Living, a non-profit organization, offers practices, resources, and belonging for those seeking a more awake, joyful, and meaning-filled life. We provide opportunities for personal reflection and simple ways to bring the benefits of grateful living into your day-to-day life, either “live” online through eCourses and practices, at in-person events around the country, or 24/7 on our website. All our online offerings are free so as to be accessible to all. Donations are warmly welcome. The world needs gratefulness now more than ever—and we’re here to support the practice.

Learn more about the fundamentals of grateful living with these resources:

What is Gratitude?

Ten True Things about Gratefulness

Cultivating a Practice: Grateful Living as a Way of Life

For a deeper dive, consider the book Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted, written by Kristi Nelson, executive director of A Network for Grateful Living.

Nourish Your Daily Practice

Sign up to receive our Word for the Day, twice-monthly newsletter, and/or Poem a Month by email.

Reflect on the Daily Question in the Practice Space online

Watch Br. David’s videos A Grateful Day, Blessings, and Stop. Look. Go.

Explore our curated Poetry Collection

Deepen your exploration in our Library of Resources

Share your grateful sentiments with our free eCards

Make gratefulness.org your homepage

Join a Community of Practice

Join or start a Grateful Gathering in your area or online

Attend Grateful Living workshops and events

Participate in live or on-demand eCourses and extended practices

Share the Gift of Grateful Living with others

Who is A Network for Grateful Living?

A Network for Grateful Living is a U.S.-based, global nonprofit organization serving a growing movement of people who want to live more gratefully. Through a rich diversity of offerings, we support people to see the wonder and opportunity in every moment and to act boldly with love, generosity, and respect towards one another, ourselves, and the Earth. Our commitment is for the gifts of grateful living to be available to people from all walks of life, and we strive to keep all that we do welcoming, inclusive, and accessible. As a community of practice, we believe in the exponential impact of grateful living, so we create opportunities for people to gather and learn together.

Our organization was founded in 2000 by Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB, known as the “grandfather of gratitude” and one of the most important figures in the modern interfaith dialogue movement. Having Brother David at the heart of our genesis story is a blessing. His teachings are fundamental to what we offer the world.