The Power of Gratitude

If You Practice Gratitude Daily, you will find so much more to be Grateful For

Can you think of 3 things right now to be grateful for? There are so many things we have to be grateful for, but often we take them for granted.

Gratitude is an emotion. When you feel thankful for something, you are showing gratitude. It is also an awareness. By expressing or feeling gratitude, you are acknowledging that there is good in your life.

Feeling grateful changes how you feel inside. It lights you up, softens your heart and creates a more positive, expectant feeling.

It is easy to let negative thoughts, words, situations, events and action push out the positive feelings in our life. The news, social media and daily encounters in society can often be overwhelmingly negative if we don't actively choose to look at things from a different perspective. Our culture seems to be fixated on all the negative and teach us to always expect the worst to happen and be always on the defensive.

Yet the simple act of being aware of all the abundance around us and expressing gratitude regularly for everything can diminish the negativity in a powerful way. Many studies have been done on the impact of having a grateful perspective. Some of the findings of having a regular Gratitude Practice are below.

Increases feelings of optimism, joy and satisfaction
Diminishes anxiety and depression
Strengthens the immune system
Helps with getting more effective sleep
Promotes resilience from challenge and traumatic events
Promotes stronger connections in relationships and within community

When you choose to be grateful for everything, your perspective changes on everyday living. You will be able to reframe situations from feeling victimized to empowered. Instead of blaming anyone for anything, you will give other people grace and find a way to find the good in any situation.

Your daily existence becomes more peaceful and calm. Drama dissolves in a gentle understanding that every possible thing can be turned to something good if you choose to find it.

You will appreciate what you already have, and find you feel more abundant and desire less. This kind of focus attracts even more to be grateful for, and tends to lead to more compassion and generosity towards others.

How do you feel about this post? Do you believe that simply by practicing gratitude, you can draw more things towards you to be thankful for? If not, would you be open to giving it a try by practicing living in gratitude for 1 or 2 weeks and see how it goes?

If so, click here for my simple 5 step "Morning Reset" guide and get started.