Gratitude is the single easiest way to shift your life.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failure into success, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~Melodie Beattie
The universe is a magnet–if you are stuck in the woe-is-me and the worry of things, the universe will offer you more opportunities for woe and worry.
If you focus on the spaces where you feel joy and peace, you will experience more joy and peace.
The easiest way to do this is by being grateful for what is. Even the small things, especially the small things….
TRY THIS SIMPLE EXERCISE: BEING GRATEFUL (GREAT-FULL)
Every day, write a list of five things you are grateful for. Things that make you feel great and full.
They can be small things
big things
things that make you smile.
They can be people
places
synchronistic opportunities.
Try to write five new things each day
You do not need a special gratitude journal or thankfulness notebook. You can write on a restaurant napkin or the back of your grocery list. You can throw the pages out at the end of the week.
It’s not about WHERE you write them, but THAT you write them.
And if you write your list at the same time every day, it will become a habit.
Share your list with your friends. Invite them to write their own thank you notes to the universe.
GRATITUDE is a gift of the present moment. Gratitude shifts your focus immediately from what you don’t have, what you’ve lost, what isn’t and cannot be, to what is.
Gratitude brings you back to your heart.
I have to admit, this is one thing I’ve started to do very regularly and it has truly made a difference. While I still struggle with Day to Day attitude (thank you menopause hormone swings from hell) and “victimhood” (this was all me I’m afraid) , the gratitude journal helps me see the big picture very clearly.
When I got to the end of 2009 and I had a thick notebook of daily gratitudes – there was no way I could say it was a bad year. Like every year, it’s a good one because every single day there was good happening. My lists are the proof and I can’t deny it!
Thanks for sharing that, Amy. And YOU are on my GREAT and FULL list!
Hi Ruth. I can’t thank you enough for the latest ezine, or as I like to call it the “don’t waste another moment letter” from what you told me last time and what you said today, I am moving on. I think you gave me that little extra push I needed today. I think there are no accidents. The other night my friend took me to a mercury game for my birthday. I was feeling crappy about not being able to, or unwilling at the time to move, on. We had great seats and out of the thousands of seats left 2 very dear friends of mine sat down right beside us! I hadn’t seen them in a long time and it was just a “there are no accidents moment”! Since then, and with this this message from you, I’m moving on to today and only today because that’s all I really have and I sure don’t want to waste it anymore. Thank you so much and Please email me when I can meet you at Juan’s, I’m sure it’s my turn to buy.
Thanks, Shonda, for being brave enough to say YES to doing it a different way. There’s no turning back now! And happy birthday! Yes, let’s celebrate at Juan’s sometime soon.
Love that you also talk about gratitude as Great Fullness. I like it when my heart is so full that it over-flows. I usually place extra emphasis on gratitude at this time of year, and this year I was inspired to do a ’21 Day Celebration of Miracles & Great Fullness’ … sharing on my FB page what I was seeing as a miracle each day. I was surprised at how much more deeply I experienced gratitude and how many AWE moments I created by just paying attention to what could be considered an “everyday miracle.” I wrote a few posts on my blog at http://www.s-h-i-n-e.net/ if you’d like to read more. Thanks, Ruth, for your wonderful heart sparks and for sharing your journey with such authenticity! Shining Sora
Sora, what a beautiful practice. and I think sharing our gratitudes makes us feel even fuller somehow. I look forward to reading your posts. Thanks so much!