Practicing Gratitude

Welcome back to my blog! It’s been a bit of a longer stretch since the last time we’ve connected, but that just means I’ve covered more ground and have that much more to share this time. =)

This week I wanted to talk about gratitude and why practicing gratitude is so important in this choice to bring about more peace and joy in our lives. A lot of times people might think the advice to practice gratitude is like a slap in the face, especially if the person hearing the advice finds themselves frustrated, angry, or annoyed with the things that are going on in their life. They might hear, “Quit your whining and be happy with what you’ve got!” or “Stop dreaming so big and be humble!”

Regarding the first statement, “Quit your whining and be happy with what you’ve got”, there is a basic truth to the essence of the statement, but practicing gratitude is not about repressing your anger and slapping on a happy face. It’s about cultivating a shift that moves you from anger and aligns you with peace and contentment, which is a more natural state of being. In cultivating this perspective as a choice, the anger will begin to let go of you versus you trying to force the anger away. Gratitude aligns you with spirit. It helps you to see the beauty of what is right in front of you. It brings you to the present moment, which is where life is taking place. Life is not happening in a past memory or an anticipated future event, it’s happening right now. Practicing gratitude creates the space for goodness to come into your life. If you are angry, pessimistic, or frustrated, you’re focusing on what is missing in your life, which leaves no room for goodness to enter. Even if goodness did enter, you wouldn’t recognize it because it wouldn’t fit your belief about lack or whatever you’re angry, annoyed, or frustrated with.

Practicing gratitude shifts your perspective to one that focuses on abundance, goodness entering your life, beauty, peace, and feeling content. You may interpret the idea of feeling content as the statement mentioned earlier, “Stop dreaming so big and be humble!” I would never advocate anything less than dreaming big (though I could challenge the motivation behind your dream, but that’s for another blog). How gratitude works in this situation is that it cultivates patience to allow the necessary time for dreams to manifest. Gratitude also fosters momentum as you recognize the various successes that are occurring, whereas impatience starts to foster lack. Practicing gratitude maintains a focus on goodness and abundance, which keeps the door open for more of the same to enter as your dream continues to manifest.

Gratitude puts an immediate focus on the beauty and goodness that is already in your life. In my experience, it immediately fills me up with an overwhelming sensation of peace. It shows that happiness is in the present moment and isn’t something that is reached somewhere down the road when outside conditions are met (including the big dream that you may be working to manifest).

In the video below, I delve more into some of the things that I do to cultivate gratitude in my life and I also talk in more detail about beliefs, perspectives, choices and the meaning we assign to them.

Click here to watch the video.

With love,

Shanna