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Be thankful for closed doors, detours and roadblocks. They protect you from paths and places not meant for you ~ mindsetofgreatness

 

Gratitude for the experiences in your life is an essential element of well-being. Ancient philosophies taught that being grateful was a basic emotion that was essential for the success of any society.

How you respond to every event big and small shapes you. Gratitude responses are associated with brain activities that correlate to morality, judgment and reward. Like the breath, gratitude can be a powerful healer. The more you entertain gratitude in your life, the more it multiplies. The more it multiplies, the closer it moves you to the true and essential nature of love.

 

As you wake each day, take a moment to express gratitude for the simplest of things. Consider this powerful poem as a reminder that mindful awareness of the most ordinary things can help bring a perspective of gratitude.

 

THE PATIENCE OF ORDINARY THINGS

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

~ Pat Schneider

Gratitude as a way of life asks you to appreciate everything, no exceptions. When you wake up to the truth that your surroundings, the people in your life, and your experiences (past and present) are your path as it is, not necessarily as you would like it to be, you can discover something of value and grace in every life experience.

 

Five Steps to Making Gratitude a Way of Life

• Involve the Physical – Let y touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing guide you to appreciate the miraculous nature of life itself and the gift that is our human body
• Use the words – choose to receive the good that flows from your life to you by identifying it with grateful language:  gift, blessings, fortune, abundance.
• Be Open – Use the challenges in life to show how you have grown and overcome difficulties in your life. Be grateful for those experiences.
• Say yes! Commit to helping others by volunteering. The more you engage in contributing, the greater your gratitude quotient.
• Spread the love – express your gratitude often, especially to those who matter to you.

 

Tools to get you there…

• Record your thoughts in a Gratitude journal
• Use Affirmations to shift your thinking
• Engage visual reminders to focus toward gratitude
• Take a deep breath – breathe your moments of gratitude deep into your cellular memory

 

Gratitude sources from your relationship to life outside of yourself. It is an outward looking experience that feeds back joy, love and peace to your heart and your being. It ripples out to bring more good into the world and it reduces stress both within you and around you.

Thank you!   Thank you!   Thank you!

 

 

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