Hey Everyone! It's been awhile since I've blogged, but I am back and blogging about being grateful. Learning how to be grateful is an amazing "skill" to develop. Over the last year or so I have been trying to shift a lot of my focus on being grateful for many things in my life. I hope that this blog post can assist others in becoming grateful in their lives. We are also about to launch a new Grateful site shortly that I think can make a huge difference in peoples lives. Stay tuned for more on that!
Learning how to be grateful isn't something that should be done because other's expect us to. It's simply a way of making life that much brighter. If you try to force the process out of a sense of duty, you'll get nowhere near as far as you would if you approach it with a sense of joy and wonder.
How can you learn how to be grateful & get this wonderful feeling in your own life? It's very simple and easy. Here are some points that I find may help you get comfortable with being grateful.
1. Choose what to focus on. If you spend time learning how to play the drums, you'll get better at them. If you train to run a marathon, you'll get better at it. If you teach yourself to do Sudoku puzzles, you'll get better at them. It's the same with gratitude. Every day, look around and open your eyes to the things around you that you can be grateful for. Since you're reading this, I'm going to assume you have an Internet connection. Since you have that Internet connection, I'm going to assume you have a house, and a job to pay for that connection with. That's 3 things right there that you could be grateful for (perhaps you already are grateful for them, which is great). It's also great to think about more subtle things that you could be grateful for. The fact you can read. The fact that you have eyes to see with. The fact that your brain is comprehending the words you're reading. Some of those things might have occurred to you already, and that's great! You're already on the way. Fine tune your focus to see the good things in life!
2. Constantly look for new things to be grateful for. Every day, I'm grateful for tea or coffee and a hot shower. Which is fine. I feel grateful for those things every day, so I list them every day. However, it's easy to get stuck in a rut, so I'm constantly looking for more things to be grateful for, every day. This gives me more chances to feel good, and who doesn't want that? It also keeps things fresh and exciting :-)
3. Get used to the feeling of gratitude. Take something, right now, that you actually feel grateful for, and feel grateful for it. Get used to that feeling of warmth and happiness. Feels great, doesn't it? Exercise your "gratitude muscles" by feeling grateful as often as possible. Like any muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. This kind of exercising actually feels good (as does other exercising), you feel happy and satisfied.
4. Things could always be worse. If you stub your big toe, be grateful that you didn't stub two toes. And if you did stub two toes, be grateful that you didn't break them. And if you did break them, be thankful that your body will heal them. Yes, negative things do happen. Be aware of them, but don't focus on them. Don't ignore them either. Focusing on them can turn a stubbed toe into a broken leg. Ignoring them can turn a broken toe into a badly set toe. Neither of those things are good. Being aware of those things enables you to take steps to correct them, which can teach you a new skill set - something else to be grateful for. Sounds like a simple example, but it's true.
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." ~ Cicero
Please feel free to add any other comments below on how you practice gratitude in your lives! I am really excited to hear what you have to add and also to launch the new website in the next few days! Thank you!
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