The Power Of Gratitude
Right now, there are 828 Million people that go to bed hungry.
There are 663 Million people lack access to safe drinking water.
Over 600 million Children and adolescents lack even basic literacy and math skills worldwide. (Education, 2021)
Why am I saying this?
To give you an example of how there is always someone who has it worse than you.
You don’t have to feel guilty for what you have, or guilty for the circumstances you were born in, but maybe it will help to put things into perspective every once in a while. To realize that maybe your problems are not so bad in the grand scheme of things.
I have found that it makes a tremendous difference in my own personal happiness and satisfaction in life, if I can take an attitude of gratitude, rather than one of victimhood.
What does being grateful even mean?
Here's what the dictionary says it means:
I wasn't satisfied with this so I followed up looking up appreciation and thankful definitions as well.
I still wasn't satisfied with this. So I decided to make my own definition of the word.
This is how I would define gratitude:
Gratitude is thanking everything and everyone for the role they played in shaping you.
Gratitude is sharing kindness back towards all the kindnesses shared with you.
Gratitude is appreciating all the things that got you to right now and finding value in them.
Last but not least, gratitude is understanding that luck plays a role in your life and circumstances, from the basis of your very existence, to whether of not you get hit by a car.
Practicing gratitude
To practice gratitude, show appreciation for all of the little things in life.
Give people compliments, just because you can and because they deserve them. Find something new to be grateful for every single day. (maybe write it down) Tell a friend why you love them. Help the next one in line. Spread positivity simply for the sake of spreading positivity.
Gratitude allows you to step back, and view your life from a different perspective. One that is looking for silver linings and is open and accepting of others, of different circumstances and different perspectives.
It allows you to break away from playing the victim and take back control of your own thoughts and emotions.
A quote I love from Stoic and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius is:
“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all”
Why be angry at something out of your control, like your circumstances. Appreciating what you can of those same circumstances wont change them, but it will change your experience of them.
Everyone has their own struggles, but we all have a choice.
We can choose to be the complainers and focus on our struggles.
Or
We can choose to be grateful and focus on our strengths.
Extra ways to practice gratitude
Gratitude journaling is one option, this doesn’t require much time or effort, just writing down 3 things that you are grateful for every morning. Things as little as “I'm grateful I made my bus this morning” or “I'm grateful for my friend for being there for me".
Even 2 minutes can improve your whole day.
Another way is by writing gratitude letters.
This means spending a couple minutes writing some words on why you are thankful someone (anyone) is in your life. You don’t even have to give them the letter for the practice to make a difference on your life and mental health. (How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain, 2017).
Any time you can shift your focus off of the negative emotions and thoughts jumbling around in your head is a win. Even better if you can turn those negatives into positives.
I hope this helped you spread some peace, love and positivity, because thats what its all about.
:)
☮️ + ❤️ + ☀️.
