Gratitude In Practice

Life is better with gratitude. In fact, there are so many benefits to the regular practice of gratitude, that I can’t believe we aren’t hearing the word more. Taking the time to think about all of the positive things in your life and expressing gratitude for them is such a powerful, life-enhancing tool, and we are helping our SEAL families make a habit of it with our F.R.O.G Programs. It is extremely difficult to feel overcome by stress, sadness, or depression when you are focused on gratitude and thankfulness. It sounds simple, because it is… There are several very easy practices that anyone can adopt to make gratitude a part of daily life, and we infuse these practices into our C4 F.R.O.G Programs. It is inspiring to see our SEAL operators and their families decompress and engage with one another as they take part in these exercises at The Ranch.

As the C4 Ranch grows, our C4 Program grows with it, and we are truly excited for what it is to come. For example, because the feedback was so positive following the first Wellness Weekend, this summer we are hosting another Gratitude and Wellness Weekend except this time we will be including SEALs and their spouses. We are also utilizing the Ranch’s amazing scenery to build family-connecting activities. This Fall we will be introducing a family geocache and survival program for future visitors to The Ranch and coming in October the C4 Team is putting together a Fall Festival. Here at the C4 Foundation we continually stop and remind ourselves how fortunate we are to be working with the SEAL community that we love, while providing a space for them to flourish. We are finally at a point where we are seeing all of the hard work that has gone into planning our F.R.O.G Programs come to life. And that is something to be grateful for.

Written by Jennifer Cooper, MS Psychology, C4 Foundation’s Director of Programs