By Trish Ahjel Roberts

Trish Ahjel Roberts, the author of “12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness: A Journal of Insights, Quotes & Questions to Juice Up Your Journey, shares her thoughts on the importance of a daily ritual of giving thanks.

Why is gratitude important? Please give your Top 10 Ways to Give Thanks/Show Gratitude. 

My e-book, Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Guide to Self-Care is based on an affirmation I wrote, “Wake up with gratitude. Nourish your mind, body, and spirit. Work with passion. Rest completely. Repeat daily.” Gratitude is a spiritual practice that is meant to be practiced daily. It immediately shifts your mental state from negative to positive. For example, it’s impossible to be grateful and angry simultaneously. Here are my top ten gratitude practices:

1. Say a gratitude affirmation and give thanks as soon as you wake up in the morning. Not everyone wakes up to a new day.
2. Take a “gratitude shower” in the morning by mindfully washing each part of your body and expressing thanks for its functionality. You might thank your face for smiling, your eyes for seeing, your arms for hugging, your belly for digesting your food, and your feet for carrying your entire body.
3. As you go through your day and partake in enjoyable activities like food, meaningful work or recreation, take a moment to be grateful.
4. When you do your favorite exercise or workout, thank your muscles, lungs, heart, legs and all your working body parts that function to support you.
5. When you encounter difficult moments during the day, pause to express gratitude for the opportunity to grow compassion, patience, resilience or whatever the difficulty cultivates in you. All difficult moments are an opportunity for personal growth.
6. Take a moment during the day to give thanks for the things in our natural world that often go unnoticed: the sun rising, birds chirping, moonlight glowing, rain drizzling and so many other things that enrich and nourish us.
7. Keep a gratitude journal to write down what you’re thankful for on a daily or weekly basis. Include family, friends, service workers, teachers, employers and anyone else that comes to mind. Let your journal inspire you to express your gratitude to others through your spoken words, gracious emails, texts, gifts, snail-mail notes and acts of kindness.
8. Try a mindful self-massage with your favorite oil. As you massage each part of your body, express gratitude for your ability to feel and enjoy the sensation of your skin, muscles, and nerve endings. 
9. When you get into your bed at night, scan your body from head to toe, relax that area and give thanks for your body. Give thanks for a healthy mind and a grateful heart. If you have trouble falling asleep, focus your attention on your feet. Rotate your ankles, wiggle your toes, and thank your feet for all the hard work of the day.
10. If you dream during the night, give thanks for the wisdom that filters through your dreams. Take time to notice and interpret it.

Trish, have you always been a writer? Were you into writing as a young girl?

Yes, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I started keeping a diary and writing poems when I was in grade school. When I got to high school, I wrote my first short story and made my first attempt at a novel. It’s always remarkable to me that my first characters were white even though I grew up in a black community in Brooklyn, NY. Representation matters! I completed my first novel, Chocolate Soufflé, in 1995 when I was 26. I realized I had never read stories that reflected the world around me, and I wanted to change that. It is a #sexyfunnysmart romantic drama about Caribbean immigrant families in Brooklyn in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I still haven’t read a story like it, and I hope to one day bring it to film.

What career path did you delve into after college?

My college experience was nontraditional. In my self-help memoir, Thinking Outside the Chrysalis: A Black Woman’s Guide to Spreading Her Wings I share some of my early trauma and how it impacted my life. I started working full-time when I was 17 and moved into my first apartment and married my first husband when I was 18. I went to college full-time at night while working full-time during the day. When I graduated, I worked in marketing and public relations for a few years before moving into corporate sales at a major telecom firm and later financial services.

Now, how on earth does a woman that manages investments for the wealthy pivot so drastically? You were living the American dream, and you gave it all up? Why? 

I was striving for the American dream, but I wasn’t living it. I was a party in 3 class-action lawsuits based on race and gender during the 12 years I worked in financial services, and there are more in the works. It was a toxic environment. I worked with wealthy people and was barely able to pay my own bills. The goals of the industry didn’t always align with my personal values, so I decided to specialize in Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). That helped but I finally had to make the decision to cut my losses and move into work that I’m passionate about in an environment that embraces who I am. I stepped out on my own in 2019 and haven’t looked back.

Did the years of watching people use more and more money to solve their problems lead you to where you are today? 

Money can help but it didn’t solve my client’s problems. I had powerful clients who struggled with self-doubt and anxiety. I had clients who worried about how to raise healthy children who weren’t disabled by their own privilege. I had a wealthy client whose son was charged with vehicular homicide for drunk driving. I had many wealthy clients who were angry with the poor who they considered to be a tax burden. It made me realize that money is an important tool, but it doesn’t create happiness, character, or compassion. That led me into my work as a self-actualization and diversity coach, author, and speaker. If money wasn’t making us happy, I needed to know what was. Ultimately, I found that path and I’m able to teach it to others.

Who are you giving gratitude to?

I’m grateful for so many things, but when it comes to people, I’m most grateful for my beautiful daughter, Kayla, my bestie, Tamara Guillou, and my mentor, Patty Aubery.  I’m thankful for my sister, Chrissy and my nephew, Carl, and all of my extended family. I have an amazing Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Advisory Board that gives me incredible love and support. I’m part of rich yoga, Buddhist, vegan and professional communities. I’m thankful for the honor of working with amazing people like Steve Harrison from Bradley Communications, Paul Chen from Natural Awakenings – Atlanta, and Nirvana Scott from the Junior League of Atlanta. I’m grateful for all the iconic people who have endorsed my work: Jack Canfield, Marci Shimoff, and Iyanla Vanzant. Last but certainly not least, I’m thankful for my very sweet canine assistant, Cooper. 

Tell us a little bit about your latest book, “12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness” * 

12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness: A Journal of Insights, Quotes & Questions to Juice Up Your Journey is an inspirational journal and the second book in the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ series. The first is my self-help memoir, Thinking Outside the Chrysalis: A Black Woman’s Guide to Spreading Her Wings. It’s a collection of 12 lessons that teach the path to deep joy and fulfillment or self-actualization. Each lesson is taught as a short essay followed by five journaling prompts that take you from remembering how these concepts manifested in your formative years to visualizing your desired future. Resources and tools are provided within the book to support you along your journey. #1 New York Times bestselling author and featured teacher in The Secret, Marci Shimoff wrote the foreword. Chicken Soup for the Soul Co-Author, Jack Canfield and legendary spiritual life coach, Iyanla Vanzant also provided endorsements. I’m absolutely thrilled by the feedback I’ve gotten.

I am encouraging readers to create a Mind-Blowing Happiness™ 12-Month Book Club to share the experience with friends in 2022 and join the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Circle led by me for even more monthly support and community. You can get all the details and sign up at TrishAhjelRoberts.com.

Can you give us an excerpt from your book that relates to the veganism?

Step #10 of 12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness, Elevate Your Compassion (Don’t Eat the Dead) offers this: “Your level of happiness will skyrocket when you stop harming others, directly or indirectly. This is part of Universal law and justice. Just as in the laws created by people, gross negligence is a crime, and ignorance is not a defense. When we don’t respect all sentient beings and the living environment around us, we create unanticipated problems. Whether they are infectious diseases like COVID-19 or E. coli, lifestyle diseases like diabetes or heart disease, the global climate crisis, homelessness, or crime, every action creatse a reaction. We cannot harm others, intentionally or innocently, and walk away unscathed.” 

The steps in the book are presented in a logical order, first beginning with healing, spirituality, and community before building to more advanced concepts like growing your compassion for people and animals. I didn’t make the connection until 2012 after attending a compassion retreat at Kadampa Meditation Center in Atlanta. I would take little bugs outside in a cup instead of killing them, pet my dog then sit down to eat a chicken dinner. I realized my spirit was unsettled and committed myself to become a vegetarian. I finally made the move to vegan in 2014 and formed Black Vegan Life™. Since then, we’ve built an amazing community. You can find out more by visiting blackveganlife.org. There are plenty of resources on my website, even if you’re only ready for a Meatless Monday or a monthly Vegan-journey.

Why is the art of gratitude so important to embrace? 

Living in gratitude is the opposite of living in anger. People often think of anger as rage or violence, but usually, it appears more subtly in conjunction with a lack of gratitude. It may show up as jealousy, disappointment, frustration, impatience, annoyance, and when turned inwardly, even depression. In the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Guide to Self-Care I wrote, “Gratitude is a spiritual practice that is meant for daily engagement.” Gratitude connects us to a higher source. Whether we call that source God, Universe, I Am, or anything else. The spiritual basis of gratitude is this: Do we appreciate the gift of our life? It’s as foundational as that. We are all spiritual people whether we are aware of our spiritual connection to the world around us or not.

Tell us what you feel are some of the least common ways to give thanks?

Most of us tend to take our health and bodies for granted, so the least common ways to give thanks are through activities that acknowledge and appreciate our physical selves. The gratitude shower and mindful self-massage that I mentioned previously are good examples. Many people are critical of their bodies and focus on imperfections. They often don’t show proper appreciation until they are confronted with illness. It can be heartbreaking.

When it comes to showing thanks to others, handwritten notes have become a dying art form. I have a note sitting on the bar in my kitchen right now from the Chair of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee at the Junior League of Atlanta thanking me for my leadership. It’s so rare and lovely to receive a handwritten note, It becomes a tiny treasure.

Do you find that one method is more effective than the other?

Any method of pausing in the moment and being grateful is effective. In this case, quantity matters. So, if you write in a gratitude journal once a week and that’s the only time you stop to think about what you are thankful for it’s not as effective as if you give thanks in the morning, again when you shower, again when you work out, again when someone is kind to you, and again when you get home safely at the end of the day. Gratitude should be practiced mindfully throughout your day for it to be most effective in increasing your level of satisfaction with your life. If you only give thanks once a year, such as at Thanksgiving or on a birthday, you are really missing out.

Which of your other publications would you recommend that we share with our audience?

Thanks for asking. My two books together, 12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness and Thinking Outside the Chrysalis make a thoughtful and powerful gift for any occasion. They can be purchased through my website, TrishAhjelRoberts.com, or on Amazon. You can also access the free e-book, Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Guide to Self-Care on my website as well as my blogs and podcast episodes. If you want to give someone special in your life an amazing gift, I recommend you combine the books with a subscription to the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Circle. All of my content is designed to inspire you and improve your life, or as I like to say, it’s designed to help you slay self-doubt and limiting beliefs so you can juice up your life’s journey and find Mind-Blowing Happiness™!

It seems as though you focus a lot on Gratitude? Would you say that’s the reigning principle that you live by?

Gratitude is most definitely a fundamental principle, but there is so much more. The foundational components of 12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness are healing spirituality, community, self-love, and peacefulness. Gratitude is a thread. It helps us heal. It’s part of the fabric of spirituality. It connects us in community. It helps us practice self-love. It reverses our anger to create peacefulness. It’s quite simple but also profound.

What would you recommend a stressed-out mom of two do to remain centered in gratitude?

When you have a family with small children it’s difficult to find time for yourself. Sometimes the bathroom is the best sanctuary you have. Use it to take a gratitude shower, to light a candle or burn a bit of incense. When my daughter was young my car was another sanctuary for me. Take a few moments at the end of the day before you pick your child up from school or before you walk into your home. Take three deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth and listen to a 5-minute guided meditation. There are plenty of apps you can try. I also provide plenty of my own meditation recordings on the resource page of my website. You can access at TrishAhjelRoberts.com/resources.

Closing Remarks

I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to share with you today. I encourage you to visit my website and join the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ Circle. I’m teaching these lessons and many more and building a community to not only slay self-doubt and limiting beliefs but change ourselves so we can change the world. As American poet, June Jordan said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Trish is also the author of the inspirational journal Quotes & Questions to Juice Up Your Journey, the Mind-Blowing Happiness™ series, and her self-help memoir, Thinking Outside the Chrysalis:  A Black Woman’s Guide to Spreading Her Wings.