YOU- Body, Mind, Spirit #7: I’m Grateful and I’ll Tell You Why!

Something happened yesterday which just bowled me over. It filled me with gratitude. So today I have to talk about gratitude. When was the last time you felt grateful?

 

For me, gratitude is like falling in love. It’s this wave of utter delight that envelops me, and I’m in a bubble of exquisite joy. It lifts me up and I feel like I’m floating on air. Did you ever have that feeling? I’m sure you have. We’ve all fallen in love, right?

And what’s so great about feeling grateful? Well, as I just mentioned, it feels wonderful but more importantly, it displaces stress! You can’t feel stressed and grateful at the same time. So, the more time you spend being grateful, the less time you’ll feel stressed!

Gratitude is experienced totally in the present moment. And that’s a great place to be because here you’re not concerned about the future or the past. You’re completely immersed in the excitement of the Now.

Unlike falling in love though, which you can’t plan for, you don’t have to wait to feel grateful. You can encourage and nurture gratitude in your heart and mind so that it becomes a common occurrence.

How do you do that? How do you nurture gratitude?

~ By welcoming it! By keeping it top of mind, saying, “I could be grateful right now and that would feel good. I like the feeling of feeling grateful!”

That’s easy to say but it may not be the first thing you think of in most situations. So my suggestion is something that’s easy to do because it’s so frequent –

~ Notice your ingratitude!

Now, why do I say that? Because it’s easy to be annoyed. For instance, let’s say you’re sitting at your desk. You’re busy working, you’re really involved in something, and then a colleague comes over to give you something, or the phone rings and breaks your concentration. So what’s your immediate response? You’re inconvenienced at the least, yes? “Please go away and come back later. I’m busy!”

So there it is right there, an opportunity to shift from annoyance to gratitude. Don’t you have these things happen all throughout the day? You can at that moment, STOP, and recognize your ingratitude. Here’s someone coming to help you. And this is how you respond? Imagine how you’d feel if you say instead, “Thank you. That’s wonderful. I really appreciate you remembering to give that to me…” or whatever it is that the person wanted to do for you. Your whole experience shifts. You’re going to feel that upwelling, as I call it, an upwelling of joy that will come as you allow yourself to feel the gratitude.

 

So notice your ingratitude.

Let it hit you in your heart and awaken your self-awareness: “Look at me. I’m getting all wrapped up in my negativity. Do I really want to stay here?”

~ Be helpful to another person. Use your expertise and offer it to someone who you know really could use it. And I don’t mean you should give away the store, but you know things that other people don’t know. They are so basic and simple to you, but to them, not so much! So if you can help someone out and see their eyes light up and hear them say, “Oh, wow, that’s great. That really helps!”

Ah, there you go. That upwelling is going to wash over you again, and when that happens, it’s like all the little particles and parts of you start to tingle and you feel so incredibly good.

~ Become part of a community. If you have a passion or an interest in something, join a group so you can share your passion. Well, you’re going to have lots of opportunities to be grateful because you’ll be fulfilling a dream of yours.

It becomes easier and easier as your willingness to be grateful increases and then it becomes automatic. I won’t say it’s going to happen tomorrow. You must seek it out.

The rewards of gratitude are amazing, as I’ve been pointing out. The more you feel grateful, the happier you are. And the happier you are, the healthier you’re going to be. Seriously, because you’re inducing the happy hormones, endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin to circulate in the body/brain, not the stress hormone, cortisol, that causes havoc when you judge.

Gratitude keeps you healthy and when you’re healthier, you’re going to be more focused on your goals. And as that happens, your business improves and your personal relationships fill you with happiness. So wow, I mean, it’s worth being grateful, don’t you think?

Something else you may not have considered — You’re normally grateful for things you consider positive. e.g. “I got a new customer. I’m so grateful. I won the lottery”- whatever. You’re happy. And you feel grateful.

But what if you were grateful for something ‘bad’?

I’ll tell you my own little story to give you an example because this is exactly what initiated this discussion today.

I had hired someone to help me in my business and things were going along fine. Everything was great and then we hit a bump or two, nobody’s fault, and it didn’t work out. It just fell apart. So I lost that person’s help. I won’t lie, I was upset momentarily. I thought, “Oh no! What will I do now?”

Then I said, “Wait a minute. I remember my mom saying to me, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ And then I thought, “There’s an opportunity here that I’m not aware of. And I’m just gonna let it be. I’m going to trust that I will get what I need.” And guess what?

That’s exactly what happened! Because I chose to trust and be grateful for this experience that at first didn’t seem like something to be grateful about, I was presented with someone who I really respect and admire for her expertise at doing the kind of work that I need. And she offered to work for me!

What I must do then, is release my disjointed, anxious thoughts and recognize I have a choice. I need to shift my focus so that I can experience the love that’s present because every single living being wants to be loved. Maybe not in the way we would recognize because we all have different needs and different ways of expressing things, but we all want love and we all want to give love. We’re social creatures.

Experience your gratitude and allow it to flow through you in every situation. Be open. Be listening. “What should I do?” And then allow your inner wisdom to speak to you.

I’ve spent all my many years studying metaphysics, reading self-help books, taking courses and this is what I’ve concluded:

We are here to pursue our understanding of love– how to express love, how to accept love. That’s where delight comes in and stress and fear fly away. It will come more quickly and easily as we practice our ‘gratitudability!’ and allow ourselves to have those wonderful upwellings of joy that will come as a result.