I am sharing with you some scientifically proven ways to bring more gratitude into your life.
Let’s start with what gratitude is and why we want more of it.
Gratitude actually contains two parts: First, we affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits that we’ve received. The second part of gratitude is that we recognize the sources of this goodness is outside of ourselves... We acknowledge that other people, or even a higher power if you're of a spiritual mindset, gave us many gifts, big and small to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.
Why do we want more of this?
Gratitude feels GREAT and fosters hope for the future. Pause for a moment and allow yourself to go back to a time when you were really grateful for something or someone. How does it feel? It feels wonderful, doesn’t it? I describe it as feeling like a great, big welcoming hug! Who doesn’t want more of those?
Gratitude builds connection. Taking the time to appreciate those people who are contributing to your life in a positive way helps to build trust and intimacy. You are more likely to build a deeper, more meaningful relationship with those around you.
Gratitude helps you sleep better. It helps to reduce worrying, resulting in a better night’s sleep.
Gratitude increases happiness and positive emotion. When you are seeking and celebrating the good things in your life, you feel less stress and anxiety, and more happiness!!
Now that we're clear on what Gratitude is and why we want more of it, let’s talk about some ways to do it.
1. Keep a Gratitude Journal - Setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life, gives you the potential to create a life-long theme of gratefulness. If you're not a paper/pen type of journal person, you can create a digital journal using voice clips on your phone or do what I do which is to create a gratitude jar. This is very simple to do. Just find an empty jar and fill it with Post-It Notes of things you are grateful for!
2. Remember the Bad - To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.
3. Ask Yourself Three Questions - Utilize the meditation technique known as Naikan. Naikan is a Japanese word that means inside looking or introspection. This involves reflecting on three questions daily:
“What have I received from?”
“What have I given to?"
"What troubles and difficulties have I caused?”
For more information on this type of practice, you can message me or Google Naikan.
4. Learn Prayers of Gratitude - In many spiritual traditions, prayers of gratitude are considered to be the most powerful form of prayer. This is because, through these prayers, people recognize the ultimate source of all they are and all they will ever be.
5. Come to Your Senses - Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.
6. Use Visual Reminders - Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude. Oftentimes, the best visual reminders are other people.
7. Make a Vow to Practice Gratitude - Research shows that making an oath to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.
8. Watch your Language - Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses the language of gifts, givers, blessings, blessed, fortune, fortunate, and abundance. In gratitude, you should not focus on how inherently good you are, but rather on the inherently good things that others have done on your behalf.
9. Go Through the Motions - If you go through grateful motions, the emotion of gratitude should be triggered. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude.
10. Think Outside the Box - If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must creatively look for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful.
Friends, you now have 10 ways to be more grateful in your life. I’d love to hear from you, which of these suggestions will you be trying? Drop your favorite method in the comment below...
I’d also like to leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Albert Einstein:
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Choose to see and celebrate all the many miracles in your life, my friends!
Until next time, remember...
Happiness Starts with you.
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