Every November, we as Americans sit down to a seasonal feast and offer thanks for what we are grateful for.   For many of us, that is unfortunately the only time we actually stop to express gratitude.   Lately, as I have been reading several articles on the many benefits of gratitude, I have wondered why we don’t recognize or celebrate what we are grateful for more often.

      Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of California, found in a 2003 study of nearly 200 people, that those who kept a regular gratitude journal experienced more optimism and had healthier habits than those who recorded or remembered struggles or neutral life events.  When we are practicing gratitude, it keeps us focused on what is right and good in the world rather than what we could see as wrong. Cheryl Richardson, author of The Unmistakable Touch of Grace has said, “A grateful heart is like a magnet, attracting more abundance, support, and things to be grateful for.”

      It is very easy to weave more thankfulness and gratitude into our daily lives.  One of the ways is what I mentioned earlier-a daily gratitude journal.  A journal is wonderful simply because it can be a keepsake to remember how blessed you have been in the past.  You can also start the day and/or end the day with remembering at least five things you are grateful for in your life.  You can also do this when you are waiting in line, brushing your teeth, or cooking a meal.  I recently read of a lady who every year about ten days before Thanksgiving, puts out a journal on her family’s kitchen counter and asks her family and friends to write it down every time they think of something for which they are grateful.  Her family makes it a goal to write a list of at least 1000 things in less than two weeks’ time.  By Thanksgiving Day, they always come up with at least 1000 items on their gratitude list.

      I was reading Dr. Don Colbert’s book Stress Less recently, and in it he was sharing a story he had read in one of Dale Carnegie’s books.  It was a story about a man who had always complained about not having any shoes until he met a man who didn’t have feet! Our perspective in life is everything!

      Even though we live in a country that has so much to offer, and we are such a blessed people, it can be easy for us to take for granted what we do have and at the same time be negative for what we don’t have.  When we purpose to be grateful, it raises our consciousness level to one of hope, joy and abundance rather than hopelessness and frustration. 

      Some of the simplest things I think we can be grateful for every day, are the ability to take a hot shower (how much does that frustrate us when we can’t), owning a refrigerator, an oven, a car, a home, air conditioning, running water, sufficient food and clothing, and friends and family who love and support us.  We truly do have so much to be thankful for!  Blessings on a beautiful Thanksgiving. 
  
Copyright © 2008 by Shauna Bruce www.DivinePotential.com.  All Rights Reserved.