Gratitude is essential to our well-being. But it’s not always easy to feel grateful when we’re under stress and dealing with our daily lives. There are some really good reasons why feeling grateful, even when you’re not happy in your current situation, is so important.
First, it raises your vibration. Gratitude is a high-vibration emotion. When we feel grateful, we resonate with the vibrational frequency of gratitude. And that feeling and vibration attract to us experiences that are in sync with the feeling of gratitude. The more we are grateful, the more we manifest even more in our lives to be grateful for.
Second, it feels good. Think about when you’ve felt grateful for something in your life — an experience, a person, a gift, etc. That feeling of gratitude just feels good. When we feel good, we are happier. And happiness and joy are also very high-vibration emotions. So the more we feel happy and joyful, the more experiences we attract that bring even more happiness and joy into our lives.
Are you beginning to see a pattern here? The more we feel grateful and happy, the more we attract experiences for us to feel happy and grateful about.
It becomes an upward cycle of positive emotions.
“But,” you may be asking, “how do I feel grateful when I’m going through this [insert whatever painful or difficult situation you’re dealing with]?”
Sometimes, life gives us lemons. It’s part of the human experience, for better or worse.
It can be really difficult to “think” yourself out of a painful situation. Low-vibration emotions create their own downward spiral of negative emotions. Just like high-vibration emotions attract more high-vibration experiences to us, low-vibration emotions, like fear, anger, frustration, etc., attract more low-vibration experiences to us.
So how do we make lemonade out of the lemons life hands us? Gratitude.
There is so much we take for granted these days. #FirstWorldProblems has become a popular hashtag because so many people realize how fortunate we really are – even when life hands us a lemon.
When life gives us a lemon, it’s even more important than ever for us to feel grateful. Not necessarily grateful for the lemon, but grateful for everything else we have in our lives.
Nothing will shift you out of a negative emotion or downward spiral faster than feeling grateful.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed or are struggling in a difficult situation, take a deep breath and look around you, and think about what you are grateful for in your life. Really feel the gratitude.
It can start with small things:
“I’m grateful I have a home.”
“I’m grateful I have electricity and running water.”
“I’m grateful I have food to eat.”
“I’m grateful I have a loving family and friends.”
“I’m grateful I have an income.” (Even if it’s not where you want it to be.)
Then look at the world around you, and ask yourself what you are grateful for:
“I’m grateful for the beautiful sunset.”
“I’m grateful for the blue sky and clouds.”
“I’m grateful for the birds chirping outside.”
“I’m grateful for the beautiful flowers blooming.”
“I’m grateful for the rain/snow/sunshine.” (Whatever the weather is like where you are)
Really feel gratitude for these things – in your life and in your surroundings. Feeling grateful will shift you out of the fear and pain, and reverse the downward emotional spiral, faster than anything else.
How to Incorporate Gratitude into Your Life
Making gratitude a part of your daily life trains your brain to look for things to be grateful for. When you begin to look for things to be grateful for, you begin to see them occurring in your life more often. And this builds new neural pathways in the brain that are programmed for happiness. So gratitude and happiness become a habit. 🙂
1. Get a gratitude journal. You can use any notebook or notepad you have or get a special journal — whatever you would like. The important thing is to have a special place where you focus on things to be grateful for in your life.
2. Set aside some time every day. Some people prefer to do this right before bed. Others like to have it as part of their morning routine. Decide what works best for you. Take a few minutes every day to write ten things you’re grateful for.
This is where you really want to think about the things you have to be grateful for in your life… and feel the gratitude. The stronger the feeling of gratitude, the stronger the magnetic pull to bring more of the same into your life. The more you are telling the Universe, “I really love and appreciate this, and want more of this in my life.”
Leave a Reply