I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit.

Martha Graham

Welcome to Day Five of Stop.Look.Go

The result of any kind of practice — whether as a teacher, a painter, an athlete, a gardener, a cook, a parent, a writer — is always greater than the sum of its parts. At some point, learning a discrete set of skills evolves into a kind of art and a way of being. In the case of Stop.Look.Go, the art is living gratefully. 

While Stop.Look.Go can be a gamechanger in your daily routines, it can also be an invaluable compass that guides and enriches your entire life’s journey. It can help you navigate important decisions, reshape a relationship, dismantle the roadblocks that keep you from joy, and provide both solace and direction in times of struggle and grief. Br. David Steindl-Rast puts it this way: “Grateful living provides an ingeniously simple gateway to living fully and joyfully. Better than anything else, it can help us find our orientation — and find it again every time we lose it.” 

That deeper meaning you may be longing for? That sense of belonging? The desire to hold joy alongside sorrow? The yearning to feel fully alive? The practice of Stop.Look.Go can be a key to all of these if, as Br. David continues, “we live it at its deepest level.” When it becomes your way of being, Stop.Look.Go awakens you to what is available to you in this present moment and in the moments yet to come; it becomes what Br. David calls an “inner orientation to full aliveness.”

Today’s Practice: Make Stop.Look.Go Your Way of Being

Set the stage for today’s practice with this beautiful, 10-minute film by Reflections of Life, in which four people share their stories of finding a meaningful path through life. These are the profound questions addressed in the film: What are you going to do with this time that you have? How would you like to live this life? While yesterday’s practice focused primarily on the rhythm of daily life, today’s is an invitation to apply Stop.Look.Go to an ongoing aspect of your life’s journey.

Transcript available here.

Step One: Attune Your Heart to What Matters Most

Take a few minutes to open your heart to some of the truly important things going on in your life right now, the things that matter most to you. In written reflection or quiet contemplation, consider one or more of the following questions:

  • When do you feel most alive, and what allows that?
  • Is there an aspect of your life where you would like to feel different than you do? Perhaps more joyful, more connected, or more comfortable with uncertainty?
  • Are you able to contribute to life around you in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling to you?
  • Is there something challenging or heavy you’re carrying that would benefit from extra care and tenderness?

Step Two: Focus on One Thing

After you’ve taken time to reflect, choose one aspect of your life where you’d like to make a shift, whether a small adjustment or large change, internal or external. In whatever way is useful, use the following sentence prompts to help you name the change or growth you’d like to experience:

  • I’d like to feel more fully alive…
  • I’d like to discern the path forward…
  • I’d like to find the opportunity…

Step Three: Create a Meaningful Path Forward

Now that you’ve identified your focus, think about the ways that Stop.Look.Go could support the change, growth, or deepening you desire. The idea here is to experiment with adopting Stop.Look.Go not just as a series of specific steps, but as a way of being that helps you navigate the present and create a meaningful path forward.

  • Stop: How will you lean into presence as a way to tend this part of your life?
  • Look: How will you look at this aspect of your life with a focused lens and in an expansive way to help you discover the opportunity that is available to you?
  • Go: With the wisdom that presence and perspective provide, what is one small thing you can do to take action toward your desired change?

Create a daily reminder for yourself to lean into Stop.Look.Go as your way of approaching this particular aspect of your life. Mark your calendar for a month out to check on your progress. 

Step Four: Reflect

  • In what ways can Stop.Look.Go help you feel more alive in the present? 
  • With consistent practice, how do you imagine Stop.Look.Go might help you greet the future with a grateful perspective? How might it inform what you are called to do and how you are called to be?

Practicing Stop.Look.Go Is a Lifelong Journey

As you come to the close of the Pathway, spend some time retracing your journey through the last five days and thinking about the road ahead.

  • Which practices from the Pathway do you hope to carry forward and make your own?
  • How will you lean into Stop.Look.Go as both a discrete set of steps and a way of living — a way of walking through the world?
  • Imagine your life three or six months from now. What is one new thing you would like to be able to say about your life as a result of practicing Stop.Look.Go?

Scroll to the bottom of the page (or click here) to find the Community Conversation space where we invite you to share your reflections about today’s practice and the Pathway overall.

Deepening Resource

In his essay Moving beyond Gratitude to Living Gratefully, Joe Primo describes what’s possible when living gratefully becomes our very way of being. He explains that “living gratefully shows us the ways in which we are held and supported by the very thing that gives us life — an ecosystem of mystery, interdependence, beauty, relationships, earth, collaboration, and love.”

Man standing still looking at a woman jumping joyfully into the air

Moving beyond Gratitude to Living Gratefully by Joe Primo

Research Highlight

Being Grateful Reduces Loneliness

Researchers James B. Hittner and Calvin D. Widholm at the College of Charleston recently completed a comprehensive review of twenty-six studies of gratitude and loneliness involving nearly 10,000 adults from around the world. As Kira M. Newman reports in the November 2024 Greater Good Magazine, the results of Hittner’s and Widholm’s research “suggest that grateful people tend to be less lonely — no matter their age, their gender, or whether they live in the U.S. or elsewhere. If someone was above average in gratitude, they had a 62% chance of being below average in loneliness.” The researchers themselves describe it this way: “The major take-home message from this meta-analysis is that there is a moderate sized, statistically significant, inverse association between gratitude and loneliness.”

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi


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