Gratitude
Do you remember your parents drilling manners into you when you were a kid?
“Don’t forget to say thank you!” “Be grateful for what you have!” “Did you remember to thank them?” I remember all these phrases from my childhood. It turns out my parents were onto something bigger than they knew. Because an attitude of gratitude is a recipe for resilience, joy and better health. That’s right. Being thankful for what you have in your life has a whole host of positive benefits. Research in the area of gratitude is showing that expressing gratefulness:
- can lower blood pressure and strengthen your immune system
- creates higher levels of positive emotions
- creates more joy, optimism, and happiness
- makes you act with more generosity and compassion
- helps you feel less lonely and isolated (greatergood.berkely.edu/expandinggratitude)
- Soooo… if you are depressed, in a funk, down, feeling lonely….fill yourself up with a grande gratitude latte, and you are sure to feel better. Isn’t that cool? It’s free 🙂
There are different ways to practice this. Some people create gratitude journals and write down 5 to 10 things that they are grateful for that happened in their life every day. Some people incorporate gratitude thoughts into their meditation practices. I think it’s important to concentrate on feeling the emotions gratitude brings, so when I do my gratitude practice, I focus in on the physical feeling that accompanies the thoughts of what I am grateful for. I normally do this on my morning walks with Reece. I am always grateful for my physical abilities, and I’m a visual person. I love seeing the beauty around me. Every morning that I wake up, I am completely grateful that I can see and walk. And this is my baseline. Being able to move around freely and seeing the world around me. Everything after that is a bonus. So if I’m in a funk, I return to my baseline, and appreciation and gratitude and happiness returns. Even if the rest of my world has gone completely wonky, my baseline centers me, and from there, I can find other things that I am grateful for. And then I just get happier. And Reece does something funny, and my gratefulness spirals.
Do whatever works for you.Figure it out and incorporate this practice into your life however best it works for you.
We all have had and will have our dark, awful, terrible/horrible times. All of us. People die. Crap happens. Relationships we want end. We’re fired from a job. Things in life turn sideways. We have health issues. Or chronic pain. Somewhere in that darkness there is the light. Gratitude helps us find it. And if we focus on what is good and alright, if we tend to it, it grows. The more we pay attention to something…the BIGGER it grows…
My new website was launched this week. And I have a few amazing people to thank for that. I feel very blessed to have met them, and cannot express in words how grateful I am for their talent, hard work, and patience as we have put together this project.
Thank you so much Jeremy Kasdorf of Chewie Media! You totally rock and are gifted beyond words with your awesome website development and SEO talents. Jeremy has been phenomenal in dealing with me, in bringing my vision to life, and in everything you would want in a website development person. I cannot say enough good things about Jeremy. 🙂
Charlene Cook at CMC Photography is an absolute sweetheart who is talented beyond words with her photographic magic and ability to put one at ease. If you want absolutely beautiful pictures she is definitely the go to person. Thank you so much Charlene!
Cale McComb is my logo champion. Pretty amazing Cale! I can’t imagine having to deal with people like me. But he did it, with class and a lot of patience.
Trust is huge for me. And these are people you can trust. Gentle, soulful, talented people who make the world a better place.
And now here, I would like to say thank you to my clients.
Thank you for honoring me with your trust. I know how hard that can be to do and I hold that in a special place in my heart.
Thank you for teaching me. Every day you inspire, teach, make me reach and learn about myself, and take me to new places of insight. Counselling is a two way street. A lot of times I think that you think it is a one way, but it isn’t. You make me a better person daily.
Thank you so, so much for being you. You are amazing. I keep telling you all how truly amazing you are…now if I could just get you to hear that 🙂
Signing off in gratitude and love,
Lisa