Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude
By“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melodie Beattie
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The practice of gratitude is a powerful tool for recreating your life so that you regularly experience happiness, joy, and contentment. Gratitude is simply a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for all that is. Grateful thoughts align your heart, mind, and soul.
Opportunities are given to you in every moment to be grateful for what you have and what you experience. Beauty, richness, and love already exist in your life. There are gifts and opportunities in every situation.
The core of gratefulness is having an awareness of these opportunities inherent in life events and circumstances, and then thoughtfully choosing your response.
Gratefulness is about enjoying the sights, sounds, smells and abundance all around you, appreciating all of your emotions and feelings, and celebrating the blessings of family and community.
We all have the ability to make our lives even richer and more positive by noticing daily events, appreciating the benefits we receive, and being mindful of surprises. You have the power to control whether your thoughts will be positive and focused on what’s going well in your life or negative and focused on what is not going well.
You can be an example of happiness and gratefulness by expressing appreciation to people on a regular basis. Let the people you care about know that you are grateful they are in your lives – and why.
Having much to be thankful for does not diminish the reality of sadness, disappointment, or discouragement, or the need to feel those feelings at times. You can, though, intentionally reframe painful or disappointing events as opportunities for growth and learning, and deliberately look for the silver linings.
“Whatever you are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of Simple Abundance – it will surely come, but only when you are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.” ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
Here are five intentional practices to feel more peace and contentment and to make your life richer and more positive:
1) Gratitude Journal
Create your own personal gratitude journal – a place to list your blessings on a regular basis. Record the small and large gifts and moments that are enriching your life every day. You can also create a family gratitude journal where everyone makes entries.
2) Gratitude Ritual
Create a gratitude ritual. Before going to bed at night, glance back over your day and reflect on moments of grace, abundance, joy, friendship, and contentment – the things that you enjoyed or felt blessed by that day. Nightly, record three things that went well each day and why they went well.
3) Evening Meal Blessing
Pause before your evening meal to acknowledge the things that make your life abundant and meaningful.
4) The Gratitude Alphabet
This exercise works like magic when you need a change in attitude. Either aloud or in writing, beginning with “A”, think of the first thing that comes to mind that you are grateful for that starts with that letter and say (or write) ‘I am grateful for ______.’ Do this quickly without too much thought. Continue until you have reached “Z”. You might also share this exercise with your loved ones, speaking aloud alternate letters.
- I am grateful for Apples
- I am grateful for Beauty
- I am grateful for Chocolate
- I am grateful for DVD’s
- I am grateful for Email
- I am grateful for Friends
- I am grateful for Grass
- I am grateful for Hugs
- …. . you get the idea
5) Gratitude Affirmation
Practice gratitude by reading this affirmation on contentment:
This day, I am content.
- I am grateful for what I have and for what I do not have.
- I learn from both joys and disappointments.
- I refrain from criticism and fault-finding.
- I don’t try to change others.
- I accept myself as I am and as I change.
Begin to notice if your words and thoughts are full of complaints about what is lacking in your life. You can begin right now to start to see the perfection and beauty in everything and everyone.
By applying gratitude daily in your life, it’s possible to achieve peace and contentment in a demanding, overwhelming, and sometimes disappointing world. It’s a habit of mind!
“If the only prayer you ever said was ‘Thank You’, that would be enough.” ~ Meister Eckhart
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Jan Marie Dore is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs to get their message out to wider audiences and reach new levels of success, fulfillment and profits in their business. Her clients are women around the world who have a talent, passion, service or expertise they want to share to make a difference in people’s lives. 
Fabulous next step Jan. This audio will definitely help those whose vision is challenged. And I enjoyed listening to you read the text on the page. I feel I know you a bit better by hearing your voice.
Hugs to you and I am grateful for newsletters like this that spread positive thoughts.
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Hi Susan,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I thought people might like to hear a positive message. I’m glad you liked the audio.
hugs,
Jan Marie
The gratitude journal has been a big help to me at different times in my life. At the top of the page, list Daily Joy Tracker. Then put on item by each date. Before long, you find you have a great deal to be thankful for. It also helps to look back; memories fade and things are forgotten if not written down. Reminds me of that song…Count your blessings, name them one by one…
I love gratitude! Every day I set my intention to be grateful and it makes a huge difference in how I feel about myself and life. I really like your Gratitude Alphabet idea…look forward to trying it to find new ways to be grateful that I perhaps haven’t considered. Thanks you! :0)
I had a hard day today. Sometimes it feels like we are on the ground being kicked. After receiving love from my sister thru a telephone conversation, I was able to pick myself up. Then I googled “Attitude of gratitude” and found your website. I started my Gratitude Journal and must have written everything from your web page. Thank you for helping me get back to my center joy that is always within.
Hi Ada,
I’m so glad you found my article helpful. Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions. I write daily in my gratitude journal and it immediately improves my mood and feeling of well being.