Being Grateful Can Be Simple
Welcome to my take on suggestions for being grateful or being more grateful. I hope you find them helpful.
Being Grateful Can Be Simple when you think about it. And it does not take an awful lot of physical effort. I believe even a couch potato could muster up feelings about being grateful for the invention of the remote control and TV food trays.
I also believe that what you put into the world is what you will get back - so without sounding selfish, if you are grateful and give thanks for everything - you will not only put more gratitude back into the world but you could change not only yourself but possibly the crabby neighbor who is ungrateful that you are their neighbor.
While I am not accepting comments online - I would love to hear some of what you have to say about gratitude. If you would like: Send me a message on my contact page with a short paragraph of what you are grateful for and why.
In the meantime, here are some suggestions.
Start a gratitude journal - write about something you already have so you can feel that fire of gratitude I spoke about.
Tell someone you love or who has inspired you, how grateful you are that they are in your life - a teacher, a spouse, a child, a neighbor, a church leader, etc.
Think about what you have and be thankful for it - then try to express gratitude about it even if you think you deserve or want more. You can be creative here!
This is a challenging one. Be grateful for something you are not grateful for - like a neighbor who does not pick up his trash or a headache. And then write about it.
Remember this - not everyone has the same lifestyle. So, on those days you would rather act perhaps like a crabby neighbor, walk to the fridge with your eyes closed to get a glass of something you love. Be careful, you may end up being grateful you only broke your toe instead of your entire foot. Anyhow, without peeking - do this and remember some people will never be able to walk to the fridge by themselves or have the use of their eyes to see the fridge.
Next - Open a window and smell the fresh air - does it make you feel grateful that you can smell the fresh air? Your mom would say - Be thankful you can because some people cannot smell fresh air and she will be right.
Another hard one: Thank the universe for our beautiful, magnificent earth, and look and see if anything around you changes. Being grateful for the things we can see will bring more things into focus to be grateful about. Besides, being grateful for our universe will not only support it but your vibration of gratitude toward it - may help others soak up that same vibration.
Count your blessings - at least once a day! You can begin by counting one to five and work your way up by listing them on a piece of paper.
After you have your list made - hang up your list in a place where you will see it. Having your list handy will remind you on those days you feel - not so grateful, that you were grateful when you wrote it and therefore will remind you easily to be grateful again when you read it.
Last, but not least, try to say thank you for everything coming into your life and everything going out of your life. Ken Honda, author of the book “Happy Money,” does this all the time.
When you say thank you - you are acknowledging that you are grateful for having It. But it is not always easy. You need to make the words thank you - meaningful. And you also need to make it a daily practice. And while it may sound easy at times it can be challenging, especially when you are paying bills. However, I found that if you pay your bills with gratitude by saying thank you - that you have the money to pay them, it's rather enlightening. And while I am still practicing this one technique - I do know it works.
Beeing Grateful will continue to be grateful with more articles big and small.