A quiet reflection on gratitude, presence, and meeting motherhood one day at a time. 

Gratitude.

I know how cliché it sounds.

And still, for the last few weeks, almost every morning, I’ve been beginning my day the same way.

I wake up, bring my hands together in prayer (gassho), and quietly recite the precepts:

Just for today, I will not anger.

Just for today, I will not worry.

Just for today, I will be kind to everyone I meet.

Just for today, I will live honestly.

Just for today, I will be grateful for the many blessings in my life.

There’s something about that phrase, just for today, that softens the pressure.

It doesn’t ask for permanence or perfection.

It simply invites me to choose how I want to meet this moment.

From there, I move into a short gratitude practice.

Thank you for another day to try.

Thank you for Ava and Alexander.

Thank you for this home.

Thank you for this body.

The list continues until something shifts — until I feel a warmth, a subtle vibration, a settling inside.

Nothing outside of me has changed yet, but my mornings run a few notches smoother.

My body feels less tense.

My mind less cluttered.

It’s become a refuge.

A few quiet minutes.

Silence.

Mine.

Gratitude is talked about endlessly, but applied far less often.

And we can usually tell, because complaining has become automatic.

It’s one of the hardest habits to step out of, and one I’m learning is deeply worth changing.

I’m actively working on this.

Not perfectly, but intentionally.

Sitting in gratitude doesn’t erase frustration or hard moments.

It doesn’t magically smooth out motherhood.

What it offers instead is space.

Space between reaction and response.

Space to remember that even on the hard days, there is something steady to return to.

The real challenge is remembering to come back to it in the moments when it’s most needed — when irritation, resentment, or overwhelm begin to take the lead.

Train in silence so you can meet life with more steadiness out there.

Recently, I heard a line from Anne Cushman that stopped me in my tracks:

“Motherhood is a constant assault on my ingrained selfishness.”

It perfectly summed up the internal struggle I’ve felt around my former independence.

Motherhood has a way of confronting us with our edges — our impatience, our need for control, our expectations of how things should be.

It pulls us out of our timelines and asks us to respond to needs that aren’t on our schedule.

Again and again, it invites us to loosen our grip on how we thought life would unfold.

And still, there is a choice.

We can allow motherhood to run on autopilot, to harden us through exhaustion and resentment.

Or we can let it teach us.

It teaches patience when we don’t want to wait.

Humility when we want control.

Presence when our minds want escape.

Motherhood brings us face to face with ourselves, not to shame us, but to show us what’s there.

To bring awareness.

To offer an invitation to meet ourselves more honestly.

In doing so, it also invites us to see our children more clearly, not through the lens of expectation, judgment, or fear — but as they are.

Gratitude doesn’t mean pretending motherhood is easy.

It doesn’t cancel out hard days.

It doesn’t deny exhaustion or frustration.

It grounds us inside them.

And some days, that grounding is enough.