When Strangers Became Grateful Together

A few years ago at Ubuntu, we tried something simple during December. We put up what we called a Gratitude Wall—just a blank space in our cafe, a basket of colorful sticky notes, and one gentle invitation written on top: What are you grateful for this year?

I'll be honest, I half-expected it to stay empty. We're all so private with our tender feelings, aren't we? Gratitude can feel vulnerable to name out loud, let alone write down for strangers to read.

But something unexpected happened.

By day three, the wall was filling up. And people weren't just writing—they were reading each other's notes, standing there quietly, sometimes with tears in their eyes, nodding at words that weren't even theirs.

One note said: "Grateful my body still shows up for me on the hard days."

Another: "For the barista at my local cafe who remembered my name when I felt invisible in my own city."

Someone wrote simply: "Rain. Finally rain after months of dry heat."

A woman who'd just finished her week-long personalized retreat with us added: "For this place that let me be silent without anyone asking me to explain why."

What moved me most wasn't the big, expected gratitudes—family, health, love—though those were there too. It was the specifics. The tiny, tender things we usually keep folded up inside ourselves. The small mercies we forget to name.

And watching strangers witness each other's private joys? That shifted something in the room. In all of us.

One morning, I saw two guests who'd never spoken standing together in front of the wall. One pointed at a note—"Grateful for second chances I didn't think I deserved"—and said softly, almost to herself, "Me too. God, me too."

They ended up sitting at one of our wooden tables in the cafe, ordered ginger tea and our coconut pancakes, and talked for over an hour. Later, I saw them in the evening yoga class together, mats side by side.

That's when I understood: gratitude isn't just personal work we do alone in journals. It becomes something else—medicine, maybe—when we share it. When we let others witness what we cherish, we give them permission to remember what they've forgotten to notice.

The morning light coming through Ubuntu's wooden windows. The way our teacher's voice sounds during savasana. Laughter spilling out from the yoga shala. The smell of our chef's turmeric latte. Your own breath, steady and alive.

December is around the corner, the Gratitude Wall returns. Come write yours. Or just come read what others have written. Both are acts of connection. Both matter.

Ubuntu Bali offers daily yoga classes, personalized retreats, a plant-based cafe, and eco-friendly accommodations designed for slowing down. Sometimes gratitude just needs a little room to breathe—and to be seen.