If you are still searching for a reason to be thankful this season, you may not be alone. Sometimes we see an encouraging t-shirt slogan or a light and love post and our inner monologue barfs. Others can’t see it, but we can smell the stench of our own private bitterness. Familiar?
Gratitude is tricky. We cyber socialize with angry and fearful friends. The divisive content gives us all something to focus on, but distracts us entirely from any reason we could see to be thankful. It never seems like the right time to appear boastful or to rub it in the face of others that you have cause to be satisfied.
Give it a Name
Being grateful is about much more than pride. When you pause for a moment to consider some morsel of goodness in your life, whatever it may be; you are also assigning it what appropriate place of honor it has in your journey. My child woke up this morning with no signs of serious illness. I had plenty of food to offer him for breakfast. He slept soundly, in a warm bed with clean linens.
These everyday details escape my grateful recognition sometimes. More occasionally than I’d rather, I let my own headache or household planning distract me from the reality that I am exceedingly thankful for every one of those things. The absence of any of them would be significantly felt. Say the names of the faces that pass through your imagination when considering that. Thank you that Ben is well and so glad that Katie has a loving home.
Par is the Course
For many of us, our feelings antenna only raises when we are displeased. We are all eager to recant the frustrating experience from the market earlier; but go into no detail if the trip went exactly as planned. It is a narrative that provides a skewed picture of what actually is. It’s almost like you are keeping score of your successes and disappointments, but not marking down any of the points accrued in the win column. In a natural audit of our lives, we too often attach bigger, more weighted imprints to the negative occurrences than the positive. Tiny adjustments in how you notice life around you can change your entire storyline.
When you get to take a sip of coffee or tea in the morning and it is still warm and comforting, notice the aroma. When your toddler asks a question because they believe you know everything, bask in the importance you have in their life. Pat your vehicle on the dash regularly and offer words of praise, you could be changing a tire on a narrow shoulder instead. When we identify reasons to be grateful every day, we shift our focus to a much better state of being. When we see the abundance all around us instead of the lack, more abundance naturally follows.
Everything is Contagious
There is a rising trend in Law of Attraction principled beliefs. Nature follows this pattern. First there are no ants, then one or two, then a whole colony. Cells divide and duplicate. It isn’t all that far fetched. Pretty scientific actually. Did you know even the Bible addresses speaking things into existence on several occasions.
If the words of your mouth are declaring lack and anger and disappointment, the following events are likely to continue that pattern. I suppose one could argue a chicken or the egg paradox. Does the crap attitude beget a life full of turmoil and struggle; or is it the circumstances that hatch the attitude? Does it matter?
You get to choose. First, you get to decide how you will view what is happening around you. Will you see the expected blessings and triumphs and be eager for what the next moment holds? Several studies have been done on the correlation between gratitude and happiness. Taking the time, and noticing opportunities to breathe a sigh of thanks has actual physical and emotional benefits.
Being thankful invites others to as well. If one person at the table is full of negative neurons, it is easy for everyone else to get sucked into that dusty vacuum. Similarly, one joyous and grateful person with a happy heart can encourage and uplift an entire room. Which feels better: a room full of hopeful and celebratory beings, or one where nothing is ever working out for any of them? Which do you think is a better environment to digest food and feed the spirit?
So without worry of whether or not anyone else got the memo, do your part to find little reasons to be grateful. You benefit directly from just feeling the thankfulness yourself. Others and their levels of awareness aren’t your battle, but they are likely listening and being influenced by your joy. As we approach Thanksgiving day and its season of gratitude, be the reason people are hopeful and content. Then watch more reasons to be grateful find their way to you, simply because you appropriately honored the blessings that flowed before by recognizing them in the moment.
May You Know Abundance ???? – Roots to Remedies
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