Supporting female-owned is what we are all about here at TDP HQ! We are super excited to bring you our Annual Women-Owned Christmas Gift Guide for 2020 – showcasing amazing brands, the women who have created and continue to cultivate them, amazing gift ideas with meaning and some special offers for our TDP #girlsquad! Today we chat with Claire Summers, founder of Gratitude Glass Jars.

The power of Gratitude each and every day is real, and can truly make a big difference to our mood, mindset and even our productivity! In our fast paced world and busy lives, practicing gratitude is a way to stop and reconnect with what is already amazing in life rather than always focusing on what’s next! There are SO many ways to practice gratitude, and Claire Summers tried a few but they just didn’t quite work for her personally, so she created Gratitude Glass Jars that have now become a beautiful addition with purpose to homes all around the world, Claire’s true vocation and a thriving business! We chat to Claire all about her personal experiences that started it all, her business journey, meeting Oprah (WOW) and her gratitude guide for the festive season.

Hi Claire, tell us all about the power of you little glass jars and how personally this jar helped you recover from a series of traumatic life events…
I designed the Gratitude Glass Jar as a visual tool to help me heal. When I went through my traumatic period, I was deeply depressed. I was recommended anti-depressants, which I tried for two weeks, but just wasn’t me. It wasn’t aligned to my values of living with awareness. I was recommended Gratitude journaling, but once again, it was just not for me. It was too much of a task and I didn’t want to continue spiraling into the darkness by re-writing how tragic my life had been. I am a visual person, so I designed the Gratitude Glass Jar to be a beautiful jar, that would sit by my bedside table, encouraging me to write something short and sweet to myself every morning and every night, reminding me of all the wonderful things I did have in my life. As I did this and I started to see my cards rise, you visually see that your cup is actually half full, not empty.

Why is it more important than ever to practice gratitude right now?
Gratitude is about building upon the positive thoughts, experiences and emotions within your life. Strengthening your resilience and allowing you to manifest further joy and abundance into your life. It’s essentially like building blocks, the more positive blocks you can build your tower from, the greater its strength to be able to cope with negative experiences that want to topple your tower. We’ve all gone through an extremely difficult year, one that was full of uncertainty. Reminding us that it is more important than ever, to focus on those things that we can control, that bring us joy. That build upon our resilience to be able to not just overcome, but thrive during periods of adversity. Gratitude provides this.

What do you love about being a woman in business?
I love being a woman in business as I believe that women hold this genuine capacity to be able to engage at all levels, invest their intuition into their business decisions and leave their ego at the doors. Women have a tendency to just get stuff done as we are multi-tasking on multiple levels!

We would love to share one of your favourite quotes that you always come back to…
A quote that really resonates with me strongly in both my personal and business life is from Henry Miller. “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” This quote holds what I believe to be the key of life, to live with awareness! Plus, it reminds me to celebrate life in all its glory. You only get one shot at this beautiful, crazy thing called life, I choose to live mine with awareness.

What advice would you like to share for other women who are on their own business journey?
My advice for other women on their journey is to trust the process. Embrace the uncertainty of not knowing exactly where the future is headed. It’s my largest challenge on a personal level as you want it to all happen ‘now’. But when I go back to the times when it was me, working alone in a warehouse, packing out orders, I would always remind myself that I had a vision in place and that it would all be worth it one day. Then one day came! Trust the wait, trust the beauty of becoming.

What drives your passion for Gratitude Glass Jars each and every day?
I am passionate about Gratitude Glass Jars as I feel that I have found my true vocation. I never set out with the intention of creating a business from it. But it is truly my life purpose. It combines my depth of experience, my love of connecting with others and helping others to heal through the written word. Inspiring people to live their one and only precious life with a grateful heart. I feel honored to have my products in people’s homes around the world, knowing that they are helping people to connect. What inspires me the most is hearing stories from others who have overcome adversity and thrived. These are my heroes. The energy that people like this radiate is what I pick up on. Reminding me of where I have been, what I have achieved, whilst energizing me again to continue to thrive.

Claire, what’s your Gratitude guide and tips for during the sometimes hectic Christmas Holidays?
Find the tool that works for you! I am a visual person, so I designed the Gratitude Glass Jar to sit prominently in place in my home. Despite how hectic I may be, I can’t miss it! Inspiring me to write my daily note of Gratitude. Find you space to practice Gratitude. Locate a place that allows you to pause, sit within your space and reflect. Gratitude goes hand in hand with authenticity and vulnerability. So find a space to truly connect with your heart centre, despite how hectic you may be. Re-enforce what you are grateful for. As hectic as what the day may bring you, take the time to re-enforce at night what you were grateful for that day. Whether it was seeing the joy on your children’s faces as they opened their gift, the thought of spending time with loved ones….Don’t focus on how bad the queue was when you were trying to get that last minute gift!

Tell us all about your trade show experience and meeting Oprah?
In 2017, I decided to head to the NY Now Trade Show for a bit of fun to see if anyone even ‘liked’ my idea. It was at this show, where I was in the last aisle, in the back corner, next to the bins, that I won the award for the Best New Product at the show for the Gift and Lifestyle category. An hour later, unbeknown to me, the team from Oprah were in my booth, asking me deep questions about the jars and why I had created it. I shared my story openly with them and upon leaving, they handed me their business card, asking me to drop a jar off at their office that evening. When they left, I turned over the card to see the Oprah logo. Two weeks later, I received an email advising me that I was in her list and then another two weeks later, a phone call from the man who discovered me in that booth, advising me that I was her favorite, favorite, favorite thing and was I prepared! Speed ahead another eight weeks later and I am standing on stage with Oprah Winfrey herself, where that same man, shared my story to the crowd and the media in attendance. Remembering what I had told him in the booth that day. My life changed overnight….

Meeting Oprah was just this beautiful, magnetic experience. I learnt Gratitude through her when I was in my teens and working my way through life and studies. To have been able to meet the Queen of Gratitude, Oprah herself, was a moment I will never forget. It felt so natural, just like it was meant to have happened and I am proud to say that it was Gratitude that allowed me to meet her. I had found the power of gratitude through working through my trauma and that was the outcome for me, to have manifested this wonderful opportunity into my life.

The Gratitude Glass Jar makes for the perfect gift this year, as it is so simple in its eloquent design and its purpose. We live in a life where we are covered with material assets in our homes and the simplicity of giving a gift that reminds people to connect with themselves, with their family members, through handwritten notes, takes us back to a simpler life of being grateful for what we have. Staying in the present to celebrate each day that we have with our loved ones and to look forward to the year ahead. Shop the collection here, and use special discount code PRETTY at checkout for $5.00 off to all The Daily Pretty customers throughout the month of December!

Follow Gratitude Glass Jars on Instagram and join the community.

Happy Christmas shopping!

Team TDP x