Tag Archives: grateful

A Gratitude Game – Gratitude Round-Robin

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Definition of Terms

a. Round is a go-around where everyone in a group gives their answer.

b. Round-Leader is the facilitator of the round. This position transitions at the conclusion of each round. The role of round leader can go to the person who wants it next, or you can pass the role in the round, either to the left or right. If a player does not want to be a round leader, they can pass.

Basic Guidelines:

a. Never force, “cajole” , or pressure any player into responding to any prompt. “Pass” is always an acceptable response.

b. The main rule is: Answer from gratitude. BE GRATEFUL!

c. Always give the person who is offering their gratitude the floor. Do not interrupt them, question them, or quiet them. If you’re playing this as a family, it’s especially important that you allow one another the full range of voice.

Round-Robin:

Sitting in a circle, or around a table, one person starts with a statement of gratitude, then everyone else in the group follows one-by-one. The group can set guidelines as desired.

Some possibilities:

  • Stay within a theme for each round.
  • No repeats per round. (For example, if someone says they’re grateful for family, someone else may say they’re grateful for a person IN their family, but not repeat the more general idea.)
  • Staying with one idea for every round (like, the round-leader says they’re grateful for apples, then everyone in the round says why they’re grateful for apples).

How to Create a Gratitude Altar or Shrine

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A Gratitude Altar or Gratitude Shrine gives you and your loved ones a visible reminder of all there is to be grateful for. Creating this altar with family and/or friends can be an act that allows for bonding, as well as an opportunity to focus on the gratitude you all have for each other, and the gratitude you share for things in your life.

Allow the altar to grow and change over time, as new things to be grateful for come into your life.

How to Build Your Altar or Shrine:

1. Choose a common space (like the living room) for a shared altar, or a private one for a personal altar.
2. Begin with an altar cloth or a clear surface. Choose colors that make you feel good.
3. Add items that you’re grateful for, or that represent things you’re grateful for. Pictures, flowers, gifts from a loved one, money, whatever you like! You can also add a stack of papers, a pen, and a bowl to put written gratitude offerings into.
4. If desired, add 7-Day votive candles, available in most grocery stores, or your local botanica/Latino grocery store. If you like saint candles, or Jesus, or Mary, you can use those. If that’s not your thing, use candles in whatever colors make you happy.

This altar will not only serve as a reminder of what you’re grateful for already, but also a reminder to be grateful in times of challenge or struggle; a reminder to cultivate gratitude. Whenever you want to grow your gratitude, you can spend some time reflecting on your altar, or add items that will grow gratitude for you. If you like the candle idea, light the candles, sit or stand for a while, or just let the candles burn (while you’re at home only, of course, for safety’s sake), and meditate on the abundance of joy in your life.

This article brought to you by Gratigories and Gratitude Games; Get Gratigories, Get GRATEFUL!

Some of Lasára Allen’s Favorite Gratitude Quotes

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Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

~ Kahlil Gibran

You say grace before meals.  All right.  But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

~ G.K. Chesterton

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.

~ Meister Eckhart

Let us give thanks for this beautiful day. Let us give thanks for this life. Let us give thanks for the water without which life would not be possible. Let us give thanks for Grandmother Earth who protects and nourishes us.

~ Lakota Daily Prayer of Gratitude

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy


Every moment my heart beats, it is a song; Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah…
~ Sheik Bhukari


For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and
food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal.  It’s a way to live.

~ Jacqueline Winspear

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.

~  Sarah Caldwell


When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears.

~ Anthony Robbins


You don’t get out of life what you want, you get what you expect.

~ Neil Sutton.


If you have lived, take thankfully the past.

~ John Dryden


As each day comes to us refreshed and anew, so does my gratitude renew itself daily.  The breaking of the sun over the horizon is my grateful heart dawning upon a blessed world.

~ Adabella Radici

Host a Gratitude Gathering!

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Circles of Girls at Solomon's Pools, Bethlehem, PAL

Photo credit; Khalid Arar Schawabkeh

How to Host a Gratitude Gathering!

by Lasára Allen, MPNLP

1. Choose a date!

What date makes you want to practice gratitude? You can choose Sunday, and have it be your church. You can choose the new moon, and have it be the beginning of a new cycle. You can choose your birthday, and have it be the way you begin your personal “new year”. Or, you can choose a random day, and proclaim it Gratitude Day!

You can hold monthly Gratitude Gatherings, or even weekly. You can plan them around holidays. You can start with one, and see how often you want to repeat the experience.

2. What’s Your Theme?

What do you want your gratitude fest to include?

If you want to include a meal, you have a few options. You can offer a meal you prepare. You can make a meal together as part of the party. Or, you can hold a potluck.

Offering a meal is a lovely gesture, a great gift to offer your loved ones. This is going to be a more contained experience most likely than some of the other options. You will need to know how many people are coming so you can prepare adequately. With a dinner party setting, the gratitude games can easily be the main focus of the event. Or, you can draw some of the elements mentioned below in as well.

A meal made together is an extraordinary experience of alchemy, transformation. You create together out of raw materials, and you can play the Gratitude Games while you make the meal, investing each element with the intentions of your gratefulness. This is a wonderful, magical way to celebrate your collective wealth, creativity, and abundance.

A potluck is the easiest if you want to have an open invitation, free-flowing event. The food will be less of a focus, but part of the overall experience of gratitude and collective abundance.

You can add in a Potlach ceremony – it’s also called a Give-Away. Potlatch comes from the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coastline. In a potlatch, you give away your belongings as a celebration of your abundance. In North Western native culture, the potlatch consisted of every household in the community putting belongings outside for the taking. The one who gave the most (as opposed to the family who had the most) gained the highest status.

In native culture, this ceremony was undertaken for many reasons. All had to do with the redistribution of wealth. Not everyone had material possessions to offer, and some offered dances or songs instead.

Invite guests to bring belongings, and everyone can give them away, and receive items from the other piles.

In addition to being an achingly beautiful traditional ceremony, this is a great way to reduce our carbon footprint. A give-away allows us to reduce waste, clean out storage and closets, and saves each participant the money, time, and by-product of a shopping trip, by way of new-to-them belongings.

The left-over items from your give-away may be given to the charity of your choice. For instance, I recently hosted a give-away, and offered all the left-over items from the party to a rummage sale that benefited extra- curricular activities at the local elementary school. Another time we brought the extra to the local homeless shelter and women’s crisis center in our town. Talk about sharing the wealth!

You can host a grocery drive as part of your gratitude gathering, and give the food to your local shelter, soup kitchen, or hospice center. You can have a raffle, and give the money you raise to the cause of your choice.

You can use the fest as an opportunity to educate your community about a community in need, and celebrate your wealth by sharing it!. You can offer information about Grameen, Kiva, and other micro-financing companies. Or choose a few loans beforehand that you want to join in to support, and help someone in a less economically privileged country create a sustainable income.

Of course, you can play Gratitude Games throughout.

Gratitude can be implemented in many ways. Bring your gratitude into the world, and make something grand of it.

3. What friends are you grateful for?

Who of your friends would most enjoy practicing gratitude with you? Make a list of the friends you want to share your grateful life with, and invite them to your celebration.

For your consideration: I encourage you to invite your guests via electronic means instead of paper invites, as some things I’m grateful for are a healthy planet, and healthy forests. Less waste, more breath!

Author Bio:
Lasára Allen is an author, an educator, and an advocate. Her articles cover a range of topics including gratitude, parenting, relationships, fitness, yoga, health & holistic well-being, compassion, and spiritual practice. As an advocate, Lasára writes and speaks about living, parenting and working with bipolar disorder. In 2008 she designed GratitudeGames..

Over the years, Lasára has helped clients and students find balance in their lives, and alignment with personal and family-held values. She has taught, spoken, and coached internationally.

Lasára is mom to two amazing daughters, and wife to Robert Allen, an outstanding man.

Find more of Lasára’s writing at http://www.LasaraAllen.com, and more about Lasára’s gratitude projects at http://www.TheGratitudePlace.com.