Chart Your Journey
It’s time for your next chapter—transformation through journal writing.
Show up for yourself and shift your relationships with others by establishing a deep practice of appreciation. How? You need a quiet place, a pen, a journal, an open heart, and a curious mind.
What is Grassroots Gratitude?
Grassroots Gratitude is a social purpose venture that took root as its founder was writing her book, An Ecology of Gratitude: Writing your way to what matters. It is the brainchild of community advocate, author and master journal writer Lorraine Widmer-Carson.
Lorraine’s mission is to encourage others to be curious about and cultivate their self-awareness related to their personal strengths, history, resiliency, and leadership context. Lorraine advocates for the benefits of writing longhand while getting down to basics.
In her experience, the journal has assisted her understanding of the swirl of life and its variables. It has sharpened her focus and ability to listen, helping her to understand the things that really matter in the short term, while always keeping the bigger goals in mind. For Lorraine, the important things are relationships: to family, to community, and to place.
Grassroots Gratitude’s BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal): Everyone will shift their relationships to each other and to the planet by building habits that support their efforts to connect and to care—for themselves and each other.
Lorraine believes that Grassroots Gratitude can plant seeds so that lives and communities will be transformed. With success, at the level of the individual and the collective, Canadians will adopt personal responsibility for taking actions that increase hope, resilience, and optimism—in the neighbourhood, in the family, on the sports team, in the workplace, or in the choir.
“Change starts in the privacy of your journal. With positivity and a deeper understanding of your personal reasons for being grateful, you can define the baby steps that will inspire your big leaps in relationship—to friends, family, co-workers, confidently expanding your many reasons to be hopeful.”
- Lorraine Widmer-Carson, Founder, Grassroots Gratitude
Your Gratitude Journey Starts Here
An Ecology of Gratitude: Writing your way to what matters is a practical tool full of insight and resources, intended to support readers wishing to cultivate a daily writing habit that’s grounded in gratitude.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Grassroots Gratitude offers additional resources to support a practice that is as individual and unique as you are. The growing collection of resources on this site is Lorraine’s legacy gift to the future.
Based on her experience as a mother of four, a writer and community advocate, Lorraine has been writing her way forward every day for more than 25 years, giving her a badge of more than 10,000 hours of journal writing. Grassroots Gratitude envisions a time when community leaders (however you define community) are thoughtful, reflective, more considerate, and resilient in the face of challenge, change, and chance encounters. Let’s get started.
Customize Your Personal Practice
Find the habit-forming tools that work for you.
Buy Your Personal Guidebook to Gratitude
An Ecology of Gratitude: Writing your way to what matters
Join a Community of Leaders Like You
Gratitude Trifecta: A Workshop Series for Leaders Willing to Grow and Glow
Design a Custom Program for your Group or Team
Presentations (in person or online) focused on using a journal to increase self-awareness, and personal growth
Get to Know Lorraine Widmer-Carson
In the summer of 1976, I found myself in the fortunate situation of landing my first job in Banff, Alberta. Over four decades later, I’m still in the Bow Valley with my four children, husband, and a deep circle of close family and friends who share my profound appreciation for the natural world and the glorious landscape I am privileged to call home.
With over 10,000 hours of morning musings, I’ve been honing my writing practice since 1995. I am a seasoned journal writer, and by some measures, a master of the craft. My daily habit of thoughtful introspection and written reflection has kept me grounded in my commitments to family and community while also working in a variety of educational roles for Parks Canada, The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Friends of Banff National Park, Banff Centre, and most recently, as the Executive Director at the Banff Canmore Community Foundation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic I put my head down, reading, and researching the science of gratitude. Now, using my book, An Ecology of Gratitude as an educational resource, I am excited and energized to continue my learning by introducing and cultivating “great-fullness”.
In the spring of 2023, I released a second publication: Gratitude Ignition Guide: Inspiring Thoughtful Writing. For all who want to get their writing journey started, I recommend grounding it in gratitude, and allowing thoughts to flow freely – and make space for the ‘howling fantods’, as needed.
If you have a question or are curious – please get in touch. I would be honoured to support you in your process as a catalyst, facilitator and grateful guide.
With gratitude,
Lorraine Widmer-Carson
“When I take the time to reflect and be grateful for people and experiences in my life, I feel more positive about life in the present moment as well as possibilities for the future. The key here is taking the time to reflect, because gratitude is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. Fortunately, it’s simple to do with some dedication. Being grateful and experiencing the benefits of gratitude is a gift we can all give ourselves.”
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Afton Brazzoni
Founder, Scribe National