3 Reasons Why Gratitude Matters

“Gratitude is the single greatest skill anyone can have to transform their life.”

Scott Wilhite author

Gratitude 101 knocked at the door to my heart this week! I had an amazing opportunity as a guest on “The Gratitude Podcast.” Guesting put me back in touch with its life-changing impact.

The Gratitude Podcast host: Georgian Benta, gently coaxed and guided and brought to the surface ….from within me during our interview my personal gratitude journey which brought back to life just how amazing the art and practice of gratitude has refined and shaped who I am today!

The back story…..

To say learning and cultivating the habit of gratitude changed my life is an understatement.

Prior to gratitude…I allowed daily the circumstances to rule my way of thinking and being present. I thought that to be alive was to stand by and wait for happenings…. good, awesome, not so much and bad and then react accordingly.

I carried my baggage with me everywhere just in case I might need this as my cheerleader for the next issue, struggle, and situation. It was too easy for me to be negative and hold onto this mindset as true and a marker for what was.

I was waiting and waiting…. For what I don’t know..to be told what to do next. Take this turn go that way stay… go… smile… get angry… sad to say the least.

Enter the bottom…a complete falling out with an absolute best friend whose sons were my sons best friends.. whose family was our best of friends family.

A lot was going on here and I fell into victim thinking and blaming others mode. In case you’ve never been there…. A lonely road with no one but you, yourself and you. As a result of this season, I lost time with my own family and other relationships that I’ll never get back because I was too busy mixing up “my reasons” for sadness, anger, and blame to see all that I truly had with my family and other friends.

I knew from this point on I was not living life as I was meant to but without a path from this to another, I was in a self-imposed holding pattern.

A chance yoga class experience opened up the possibility that there was more to living than was known to me.

It was here on the mat with everyone else I heard the word gratitude spoken with a call from our teacher to claim my thankfulness. This was the beginning of my growth and development. As a result of this, I sought and paid attention to self-help experts and healers — Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Martha Beck among many and found my way out of the darkness into the light of gratitude!

Today I begin and end each day with a grateful appreciative pause. Nothing is too small. The pause does not need to be anything more than appreciation that I slept soundly through the night and was able to get up and begin a new day or that the day ended with no drama or unexpected issues anything that speaks to my heart!…. This gives way to a soft smile and literal warmth from the inside out.

My routine today includes gratitude as an anchor which keeps me grounded and living fully every day!

Here are three reasons why cultivating gratitude matters:

1.Gratitude allows you to bring into your awareness the good things that are happening in your life right now.

Practicing daily gratitude exercises the “thankful” muscle which will overtime create a new mental behavior of seeking out what is good instead of what went wrong! Bonus: by creating gratitude cultivation and you will have created a positive habit that will override the negativity factor which is

the path for most of us.

2.Gratitude opens the door to deeper felt and noticed contentment with ordinary everyday life.

If you think about this. About 99% of our lives are spent doing ordinary everyday things. Gratitude is about deeply feeling and expressing appreciation for all that we have, have received, have not received. Gratitude, as I learned, is the powerful opposite of being discontented — aka negative.

3.Practicing gratitude helps us feel more valued and socially connected which greatly contributes to our emotional and physical wellbeing.

Cultivating gratitude promotes better health studies suggest by lowering blood pressure, promoting more restful sleep, and can decrease anxiety levels.Gratitude strengthens relationships.

Grateful people are generally more compassionate, generous of spirit and helpful.

I second this! What are you grateful for today?

-Be Blessed!