Gratitude—the Attitude That Changes Your Life
Gratitude – An Element of Manifesting a Good Life
A valuable concept to live by: what you focus on will increase. I bring this concept up frequently because it is that important.
If you focus on your obstacles you face and what is “wrong” with your life, those issues continue to build until you find the cathartic wisdom and strength to reframe them into what will work for you. One way is to focus on gratitude for what you currently have and what you want, and you will move quickly toward your goals. You will find more reasons to be grateful, too.
My life used to be miserable because my focus zeroed in on what people weren’t giving me. That turned out to be part of the ugly consequence from my core fear of rejection. (That’s a whole blog in itself.) When I decided I want to stop feeling so bad, I realized my focus needed to change. Two things came to me:
- Change my focus to gratitude for the good things that come from our relationship.
- How could I think differently in a positive manner about those I struggled with?
This turned out to be one of those life-changing “aha!” moments that was deeply profound.
Changing to Your Gratitude Attitude
One way to find genuine gratitude is to radically accept your feelings. When you are fighting against what feels negative or you have reacted in a negative manner, you lose the ability and power to see what is truly going on or discover what you might need to dig deeper into in order to grow.
Step back to acknowledge and accept whatever you are feeling. When you do, the inner fighting will stop, and, with a little patience, a new outlook will present itself. At that point, gratitude can step up.
Another way to find gratitude is to send the people you struggle with loving thoughts or prayers for the things you would want for yourself. I can attest for myself and a few clients that if you do this for 30 days, you will start to think differently about them.
Gratitude for Your Challenges
Can you feel gratitude for the obstacles or problems that you face? Yes! When you realize that your challenges are the opportunity to grow and evolve, you can welcome them. If you fight yourself over the challenges you have, you will get stuck. However, when you open your mind and heart to the possibility that your challenges give you understanding and awareness and can lead you to your goals, you have just empowered yourself.
What Are the Benefits of Gratitude?
In an article in PositivePsychology.com–14 Health Benefits of Practicing Gratitude According to Science—there is some great information about gratitude. Here’s a link to read the entire article:
https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-of-gratitude/
For the individual:
- increased happiness and positive mood
- more satisfaction with life
- less materialistic
- less likely to experience burnout
- better physical health
- better sleep
- less fatigue
- lower levels of cellular inflammation
- greater resiliency
- encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom
For groups:
- increases prosocial behaviors
- strengthens relationships
- may help employees’ effectiveness
- may increase job satisfaction
(From a white paper by Greater Good Science Center cited in this article)
What Are You Grateful for Today?
For me? I’m grateful for all of you. Thank you.
I totally, 100%, absolutely, POSITIVELY agree with you, Coralee! We even named the home we are building in Costa Rica, “Casa Agradecida”. Agradecida means gratitude in Spanish. ❤
Thank you, Susan. Love how you named your home. Might have to think up a name for ours too. LOL
Great post, Coralee!