Gr-Attitude

Today's Word is Gratitude

Gratitude helps you grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of those around you.” Eileen Caddy

I had an experience recently where I was standing in a grocery store, overwhelmed with gratitude. Filled with a complete sensation of appreciation at the choices and abundance of food and my resources to purchase what I wanted. I have experienced leaner times and I never take for granted the fulfillment of my basic needs, let alone the options I was faced with that day. Gratitude is defined as, “the quality or feeling of being thankful.” Grateful is defined as, “pleasing to the mind, and senses, warmly and deeply appreciative of kindness received.” The sensation I felt that day was definitely one of appreciation.

Gratitude is an attitude. Creating a practice of daily gratitude opens you up to the beauty, blessings and bounty all around you and frees you to receive more. If you believe the world around you is kind and you extend genuine appreciation out into the universe, it is returned. It is a catalyst for many of the changes and new experiences you desire, as you expand your vision to “see” all that life has already offered you. It is an affirmation, a love letter from you to the world you inhabit and a confirmation that you want more of the same.

There has been encouragement by many self-help authors to practice daily gratitude, recording your appreciations in a journal. I have used this practice at different times of my life; however to me it is a way of being in the world, not simply something you are doing. My encouragement is that you incorporate this awareness and practice throughout the day; stop and smell the roses, so to speak.

Once you become oriented toward looking for things to be grateful for, you will find that you begin to appreciate simple pleasures and the things that you previously took for granted. Your relationships improve, opportunities increase and health is more vibrant. It requires only a shift in where you place your attention and focus. Gratitude at its core is beyond simply reacting to getting what you want, but an all-the-time thankfulness; a thankfulness that extends from the obvious joys right into the unpleasant challenges. I am continually amazed at how what seems to be a problem or inconvenience turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Traffic jams, delays in decisions, arguments etc., are now all things I acknowledge as opportunity, focusing my attention on all the ways my life is working, even in moments of discord. I am no longer surprised at how events often turn out even better than I had originally hoped. In a book called, The Hiding Place written by Corrie ten Boom, I was inspired by the ability of a person to find snippets of appreciation despite enduring the greatest of horrors. While being held in Ravensbrook Concentration Camp, Corrie was a source of inspiration and determination to the other women in her barracks. Always encouraging them to be thankful for whatever meager blessings they could glean. She practiced daily gratitude, going so far as to be thankful for the fleas that infested the entire living quarters and beds. It was later they discovered the reason their barracks were often ignored and the guards left then alone was that very infestation of bugs. The women, who survived this horror, spoke of gratitude as the link between the reality of their misery and the possibility of life again beyond the cruelty.

Today, start feeling gratitude in your every experience. You will be on your way toward becoming a master of gratitude and life will unfold in ways that amaze. Noticing what is working, the people you love, the small to the large within your picture of experience, does not mean that you do not have areas you wish to improve. Appreciation, simply but profoundly, grounds you to your present experiences. I would love for you to share what you are grateful for in the comments section. Today, I am grateful for the opportunity to share this with you, fantastic strawberries, a sunny day and the love from my husband.

“When you are grateful, you are glad of heart, willing, humbled, looking for the gift inside the challenge; you find opportunities where none existed before and feel connected to the rest of the world.” Rhonda Britten

Today Ask Yourself:

1. What I am grateful for?
2. Even in your challenges, unmet goals, illness etc. What can you be grateful for?
3. Practice gratitude for the next three days. What did you notice about your day, people and your experience in general?

If it is difficult to source gratitude in your life, know that it is possible to reorient your life, eliminate stress and renew vision. I would love to help!