attitude-of-gratitude

I am so excited to share a powerful practice with you.  This is something I LOVE and have been teaching to my students and clients for years. With Thanksgiving a few days away it’s the perfect time to implement the compelling practice of GRATITUDE. For seven days in a row I will post a gratitude exercise you can easily implement into your life. According to my students and clients you are guaranteed to feel an upward trend in your organic happiness.

Why practice gratitude?

When you change the way you see things in life, things in life begin to change.

What you focus on increases.

When you focus on the negative, it is the negative that increases.

When you focus on the positive, it is the positive that increases.

I know you have experienced this before so it shouldn’t be too difficult to digest here.  I am simply putting this into words and therefore into your conscious awareness.

Have you ever awakened in the morning with the worries of the day already pounding at your brain and then experience a more things that go wrong throughout the day (insert stubbing toes, forgetting your laptop at home,  getting pulled over for running a red light and , spilling lunch on your shirt)?

What about the opposite?

You wake up in the morning feeling excited and ready to rock the day – ok, maybe it was a vacation day – but none-the-less, you have experienced one of these right?  Then the rest of your day is a cake walk, filled with events and happenings that go your way.

It’s exciting, isn’t it?  It feels good, doesn’t it?  AND it leaves you wanting more.

Well, you can have more of it, I promise.  It just takes a little awareness and a willingness to feel good.

Yep, I said a willingness to feel good.  You would be surprised how many people don’t really want to feel good – this is typically a subconscious decision, of course – and I promise you these are the same people who complain all day long about the unfairness of life and are probably raining on your parade.

The first thing you need to understand is that you are in control of your thoughts.

Yes you ARE!

The next step is your thoughts create your emotions.

Emotions change the chemistry in your brain and your body.

When the chemistry in your brain and body changes it deepens the thought and the emotion that started the whole chemical alchemy.

And the cycle continues.

So, if you want a positive cycle, filled with awareness, happy feelings and positive behaviors then you want to start  your day with something that puts you in your“happy place”.  It doesn’t just stop there though.  You will benefit greatly from continuing the fuel your happy place by checking in regularly with your thoughts and emotions.  MAKE them what you want them to be.  I promise – it works.

One of the most powerful practices to get into your happy place is the practice of gratitude, which is simply a feeling of being thankful.

Now here is THE biggest truth you need to know here before we can any further.

Things do not need to be perfect in order for you to be thankful for them.

Perhaps you don’t have all the money you want.  You can still be thankful for what you do have.  Perhaps you are looking for a new job because you have outgrown yours.  You can still be thankful for what your job is offering you at this time.  It’s possible you would like to have more friends but you realize the few friends you have are close and supportive.  Be thankful for that.

So, as you continue through this Attitude of Gratitude 7-Day Practice give yourself permission to become aware of all you can be thankful for that you have not yet embraced.  Perfection is not a pre-cursor to gratitude, in fact, it is often a saboteur.

Some of the practices in this challenge will speak volumes to you and will resonate immediately.  Others will stretch you and feel uncomfortable. My suggestion is to try them all because you never know which ones might become your new favorites.

Then go back to the ones you loved and bring them into your daily living as a new routine.  Have fun with it.  Notice thought changes.  Notice emotion changes.  Notice behavior changes.

Let’s get started!  Click here for Day 1.

 

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving,

turn routine jobs into joy,

and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”

~William Arthur Ward