Gratitude: Say Yes to Life!

If I ask, “How many of you wake up in the morning and practice gratitude each day?” The percentage would be very low. Honestly, I was one of you for almost all my life but recent times have made me realize how ungrateful I have been all this time.

How I was always busy pointing and crying over things I couldn’t have or didn’t have instead of being thankful for what I had.

“I wish I had a bigger house” but what about the house you are living in right now? Have you ever been grateful enough to have a house when there are so many people living on the streets without a roof on their heads?

We all find reasons to be ungrateful. It is easy to want things we don’t have but difficult to admire the things we do have.

Nothing defines gratitude as apt as quoted by Melody Beattie,

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

You have to stop taking things for granted and start taking them with gratitude. You don’t always have to wait for someone to do something exclusively for you to be thankful. From this point, just start admiring the little things and sit and watch your life-changing before you. Be grateful for things around you from a new day to the air you breathe to the roof over your head, the food you eat, and everything that you’ve been taking for granted for all these years.

How does gratitude change your life?

Gratitude will change your life in numerous ways. I have discussed some changes you will see in your life sooner or later with regular practice of gratitude.

When you become grateful you will find a positive aspect in every situation, not deliberately but it will become a lifestyle.

A positive outlook on all the situations will help you deal with them in better ways. The more positively you will look into a situation the more positivity you’ll attract!

Now you all must be wondering how gratitude plays a role in gaining focus. Let me tell you how, once you start being thankful for all the things you have you will see all the valuable things around you and you’ll stop seeing the unfavorable things. Here is where gratitude plays a role. With time you’ll start focusing on the good things in life.

You will gain self- control and start making improved choices in your lives that may serve you emotionally, mentally, physically, or in the long run.

Once you are thankful you will find abundant happiness and good things coming your way. This will enhance your faith. The universe will bring you more and more joy. Even in bad times, you will never feel alone. All you need to inculcate is that this too shall pass, have faith in the universe, and its timing.

Bring happiness in your life:

Most of you might not be aware of the hedonic theory of life. This theory states that every human has his or her set happiness baseline. No matter how happy or despaired you are at the present moment your emotions will get back to the set baseline with time. For example, you buy a car you’ve always wanted or you get the job you desired for the longest time, you would be very happy for a few days or months or even years but with time your level of happiness will get back to your set baseline. This is also known as the hedonic treadmill.

It is human nature to get used to the things they once worked so hard to achieve. This emotion can kill marriages as people get used to their partners, people get used to driving the same car, or maybe people get bored of working in the same company.

If you want true happiness then start incorporating gratitude step by step in your life. You don’t have to take out special time to practice gratitude. You can simply feel thankful while walking, before sleeping or while on a work break. Just a 5-minute practice will bring abundant happiness in your life.

Revamp your relationships:

Each one of us has had our own set of issues when it comes to relationships. The problem is that we expect too much. We want people to change but why not love them just the way they are?

Gratitude makes relationships blossom. Gratitude is all about attracting more of the things that you are grateful for. You should be more thankful for the things you find good in people. As you escalate your thankfulness for any relationship, you will draw a myriad of great things and euphoria in that relationship.

You will see your relationships with a new perspective. No matter what kind of person you are right now, gratitude will fill you with diligence, kindness, and understanding. It will also make you a forgiving person and a person who has no hatred for others in his heart is the happiest person.

Gratitude will help you overcome such emotions. Once you start being thankful for the things you have rather than being sad for the things you don’t have you’ll never forget the struggle it took to reach where you are right now. The same follows in relationships, despite all the flaws if you become more grateful for the positive attributes of your partner and your relationship, you shall see your relationships burgeoning. In this way, you will reciprocate your happiness in all the pursuits of life.

Ways of practicing gratitude:

You can practice gratitude in different ways using your innovative methods. Here let me suggest some easy methods to inculcate gratitude.

You can practice gratitude in different ways using your innovative methods. Here let me suggest some easy methods to inculcate gratitude.

• Every morning as soon as you wake up make sure you are thankful for a new day and a fresh start. Each day say to yourself as would Maya Angelou say,

“This is a wonderful day! I’ve never seen this one before.”

• Each day take out some time to write at least five things that you are grateful for today. You may make prompts and put them on your work desk or you may start a gratitude journal or since most of us check our phones early in the morning, you may write gratitude notes on it.
• Every night before sleeping, be thankful for at least one thing that happened to you during the day and you will see how peacefully you would sleep.

Gratitude costs nothing but pays a lot! Practicing these simple activities will make you see how things around you start changing, how you’ll be attracting more happiness and prosperity in your life. You attract what you think so make sure you attract good health, wealth, happiness, and harmony. As quoted by Meister Eckhart,

“If the only prayer you said was Thank-you that would be enough!”

Originally published at https://theponderingsoul.com on May 25, 2020.