Gratitude Changes Your World!

Today's topic is gratitude which is perfect for a Thankful Thursday.   

Kristina started her gratitude work as a yoga teacher when the yoga studio started selling gratitude journals. 

She started a serious daily practice about three years ago when she brought her first gratitude journal.  Audrie started when she  was diagnosed with arthritis in her hips and was in heaps of pain. She used her study about happiness and positive psychology and decided to focus on being thankful.   

The good thing about thankfulness and gratitude is that it actually works, it’s scientifically proven to work. And it works even if you don't believe it's going to! It's actually quite magical!  

There is an inspiring Hay House podcast about two women who used the power of gratitude. One had been in a really serious accident and was bedridden in hospital. Another was raped and attacked by one of her colleagues. Both of them were told they would never walk again. Each of them used the practice of gratitude to pull them out of their incapacitation.  They became walking talking miracles by using the power of gratitude in their lives.   

One would wake in the morning and say, “I’m grateful I’m awake, I’m grateful my eyelashes don't hurt, I’m grateful that the nurse cared for me overnight, I’m grateful that my mother came. “  She was really digging down into every single little thing she could find to express her gratitude. She wasn’t concentrating on the big bits like my body doesn't work or whatever. Instead she found those little bright spots of gratefulness and just said thank you for them.  

Audrie’s gratitude practice started alongside a meditation practice to ease the pain in her body. She was on walking sticks, very sore and unable to move around much. These practices helped. It was a few moments in her day when she could focus and feel free of pain. A time to be conscious of the good in her life. It set her up well for her surgery and went into hospital with a positive attitude.

Many of you know that when you're in pain it's really hard to do more than just be conscious of the pain. Meditation and gratitude practices bring the level of your thinking up beyond your pain and into thinking about your thinking.   Sometimes you have to take on your knowledge and really apply it. Gratitude practices are like that for Audrie. In Christchurch a terrible shooting happened and 52 people were killed at a mosque. It seemed so unbelievable. Soon after it happened Audrie felt really down and low. She took her own advice and decided on a gratitude, mediation and exercise program each day for a month. She recruited her husband to take her to the gym each morning and knew she could do gratitude practices and meditation in the evenings.

She gave herself a month.  If she still felt down she’d seek medical advice and maybe medication. It was a real success story Audrie felt much calmer and happier in her life in just 30 days.

Gratitude is the counterbalance to complaining and to seeing what's not working.  When you're being grateful you're appreciating what's right in life and you’re looking for the silver lining. You aren't making up new things to focus on you. You simply choose to find the things already happening to be grateful for.  It’s never trying to pretend everything's okay in the world. Obviously there is a lot going on and you need to focus on the issues and concerns in your life.   

Kristina talks about it like this.  “Sometimes when I’m writing my gratitude journal I’m writing the fact that my heart feels broken right now and I’m grateful for feeling the sadness. It takes away the labelling. Emotions are all just neutral. And with my gratitude practice my baseline is way higher. I’m living in a much more energetic happy state but I still have sadness. I'm grateful for that sadness because without the sadness i can't have the joy. “

Where you put your attention you see more of it. You're noticing the good things that make you feel happy. You'll notice those more because you're looking for them.  It’s a process of retraining the brain to see the good.  

We're grateful for everything that brought us to this moment. Even if it was painful or challenging or seemed bad at the time. It takes away all of the complaining and focuses on all the beauty right.  We’ve transformed our lives totally with gratitude. We show up differently for the people in our lives and the people in our lives start to transform. It actually shifts your energetics

A great book by  Rhonda Byrne about gratitude is The Secret. It  gives you a 28-day challenge to improve your gratitude practice. There’s a documentary film igniting a global movement.   

Kristina started her personal growth journey 22 years ago at her birthday party.  It was a tipping point for her. Now she’s been doing personal development for half her life and she’s really shifted. Early on she listened a lot to her internal voice saying things like I’m fat I’m ugly I’m worthless I’m no good.  Now the gratitude practice has made her appreciate her body and says thank you when people notice her gorgeous smile.

Let's celebrate that we're awake and we're alive and we've got another day on this planet. So like any change  just get disciplined and say thank you.

Focus on all of the good things and appreciating the good and inviting that good in.If you forget just go on and start again. Acknowledge the abundance flowing to you.

Say thank you I'm breathing,  I’m alive to experience this moment. Having a focus on gratefulness and gratitude it's  just magical in your life. They anchor you in a better state of being both mentally and physically. With just five minutes that it takes to write down your ten gratitudes at the end of the day. Why wouldn't you start today?

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