♥ Be grateful for each new day ♥
“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
– Meister Eckhart
Gratitude for a New Day
What is Gratitude? Gratitude is a feeling of thankfulness for the things that you have, the health that you’ve got as well as all the intangible aspects of yourself that you have been freely given. Gratitude notices when life bestows upon us the things that we require to make it through the day, the week, the month.
Upon noticing that these things have flowed into our lives, a grateful man or woman gives thanks for those things. A grateful man or woman is continuously aware of how much he or she has been given. When an individual focuses is on what is good and abundant in their life, more is added to them. When an individual focuses on lack and struggle, that is what they get more of. So training yourself to focus on abundance and being grateful for all of the small mercies of life helps to bring more abundance and greater gifts to you.
Showing gratitude helps to strengthen your relationships with others. It improves your health by reducing your stress, because you’re no longer focusing on what you don’t have and you’re now focusing on what you do have. Plus, it makes you more resilient and able to bounce back faster when life’s knocks get in the way.
How I Overcame Severe Depression by Keeping a Gratitude Diary
Many years ago when I was in my twenties, a relationship that I was in collapsed and my whole world fell apart. I could hardly get out of bed, I was so devastated by it all. The only thing that saved me was what I believe to have been God talking into my mind pleading with me to help myself. I would wake in the morning and lie in bed, dreading the day ahead of me and the thought of dragging myself through it.
Quite audibly I would hear a voice say to me, “Get up and go and write down all the things that you have to be grateful for!” If I didn’t move, if I continued to lie there, the voice would say it again. Only each time I heard it, the voice would be louder. I would hear that same command again and again. It would occur repeatedly until I got up and went to my desk and began writing.
Your List Will Get Longer and Longer
At first my list of things that I was grateful for was about 25 items long. It included my eyes, my ears, my feet and legs that got me around. Also, my hands, my ability to communicate, my intelligence and my health. The list got longer and longer each and every day. By the end of six weeks it was about three A4 pages long, both front and back.
Eventually, the list included things from my past that I’d never really thought to say thank you for. I even became grateful for the things that I had learned from the relationship that had just ended. Despite the pain of it all. Over the course of six weeks I went from severely depressed to fully recovered. All done without the use of anti-depressants, drugs or alcohol. Being grateful healed me.
So, whenever you find yourself feeling down and out, get out a pen and paper and start writing down all the things that you know you need to be grateful for. It will turn your life around, trust me.
~.* ♥ *.~
Update February 2016: The first novel in our series of seven is now published, and is a courageous story of a young teen growing up in a home filled with domestic violence, and how she manoeuvres her way through such a difficult situation.
Click here if you’d like to know more about this novel.
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