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"If you count all your assets,
you always show a profit."
- Robert Quillen (journalist)
Hello Spirituality and Science readers - I want to start this post with a question:
What are you thankful for right now? Right now - in this moment - it could be something as simple as your dog curled up next to you or the breeze coming through your bedroom window. Focus on something that you feel grateful for right this very second.
I was inspired to write about gratitude today after spending a gorgeous sunshine-filled afternoon in the park. It was a regular park and a regular day - certainly nothing out of the ordinary. Watching my kids laugh and play is something I do multiple times a week, but somehow when I watched them today, I was struck by how perfect it all was. I felt extremely grateful in that moment and thought about the power of gratitude. I think that often times it's easier to focus on what's wrong in your life than what's right...easier to focus on what you don't have than what you do have. But here's the thing - whatever you focus on (positive or negative) is what grows. So if you focus on what you don't have, you will always have plenty of what you don't have. If you focus on all that you do have, well, that grows as well.
Keeping a Gratitude Journal
Several years before she died, my mother-in-law gave me a gratitude journal as a gift. She knew I often suggested this sort of thing to my clients, but although I was a big believer in gratitude even then, I had never actually written it down. I thought I might as well try it and I wrote 5 things a day that I was thankful for - even when, especially when, I had one of those "is it even possible to have this many things go wrong?" kind of day. Somehow, the act of writing it down seemed to magnify the things I was thankful for - at the beginning, it was a struggle to come up with 5 things every day and pretty soon, I stopped trying to limit my list to only 5 things because I came up with so many. Focusing on the positive appeared to engender more positive events. I'm not saying I never have a bad day now, but they are very few and very far in between. Try it for yourself and see what happens. What are your 5 things for today?
Gratitude and the Power of Intention
Of course, this focus on positive thinking is related to the power of conscious intention discussed in the last few posts. The law of attraction states that you get what you think about, so gratitude is a powerful aid in creating more of what you want. Gratitude is one of my favorite sections of the book The Secret. Now this doesn't mean that you can't desire to have something that you don't currently have, but I believe that if you give thanks for what you do have, then what you don't have will likely show up faster in your life (and you'll be happier in the meantime). I'd love to hear any comments on how gratitude has impacted your life - which reminds me - I'm so grateful for all of you that have found this blog and find it helpful. You all inspire me - until next time...:)
What are you thankful for right now? Right now - in this moment - it could be something as simple as your dog curled up next to you or the breeze coming through your bedroom window. Focus on something that you feel grateful for right this very second.
I was inspired to write about gratitude today after spending a gorgeous sunshine-filled afternoon in the park. It was a regular park and a regular day - certainly nothing out of the ordinary. Watching my kids laugh and play is something I do multiple times a week, but somehow when I watched them today, I was struck by how perfect it all was. I felt extremely grateful in that moment and thought about the power of gratitude. I think that often times it's easier to focus on what's wrong in your life than what's right...easier to focus on what you don't have than what you do have. But here's the thing - whatever you focus on (positive or negative) is what grows. So if you focus on what you don't have, you will always have plenty of what you don't have. If you focus on all that you do have, well, that grows as well.
Keeping a Gratitude Journal
Several years before she died, my mother-in-law gave me a gratitude journal as a gift. She knew I often suggested this sort of thing to my clients, but although I was a big believer in gratitude even then, I had never actually written it down. I thought I might as well try it and I wrote 5 things a day that I was thankful for - even when, especially when, I had one of those "is it even possible to have this many things go wrong?" kind of day. Somehow, the act of writing it down seemed to magnify the things I was thankful for - at the beginning, it was a struggle to come up with 5 things every day and pretty soon, I stopped trying to limit my list to only 5 things because I came up with so many. Focusing on the positive appeared to engender more positive events. I'm not saying I never have a bad day now, but they are very few and very far in between. Try it for yourself and see what happens. What are your 5 things for today?
Gratitude and the Power of Intention
Of course, this focus on positive thinking is related to the power of conscious intention discussed in the last few posts. The law of attraction states that you get what you think about, so gratitude is a powerful aid in creating more of what you want. Gratitude is one of my favorite sections of the book The Secret. Now this doesn't mean that you can't desire to have something that you don't currently have, but I believe that if you give thanks for what you do have, then what you don't have will likely show up faster in your life (and you'll be happier in the meantime). I'd love to hear any comments on how gratitude has impacted your life - which reminds me - I'm so grateful for all of you that have found this blog and find it helpful. You all inspire me - until next time...:)
