Be grateful and change your life!

 As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day and the importance of being grateful, I would like to share with you my own personal experience on the role gratitude plays in my life and how valuing every little thing no matter how small can make you feel happy.  

It all started when I was taking a Manifestation course in 2020. COVID hit and suddenly everything was uncertain, but I had faith and I chose to be happy about the opportunity to spend time with myself and my family and build a safe space at home. At that moment I realized that I needed to be grateful for everything I had and everything that came my way. But it went beyond that.

Gratitude is a way for us to appreciate what we have instead of always reaching for something new in the hope it will make us happier or thinking we can't feel satisfied until some random physical or material desire is met.

Studies have confirmed this as well. Much research on gratitude has been conducted by psychologists Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami. In their 2003 paper on gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life, Drs. Emmons and McCullough describe gratitude as a two-step cognitive process which includes: “recognizing that one has obtained a positive outcome” and “recognizing that there is an external source for this positive outcome” (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

In his Manifest Yourself youtube channel, Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about how gratitude interacts with the unified quantum and magnetic field to create abundance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWLuNvcoLHo

Author and scholar Brene Brown shares some thoughts on what she has observed during her research; that practicing gratitude invites feelings of joyfulness into people’s lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HID-5wwTZgw

This is what I started doing and I saw a BIG shift in my personal life.

I started consciously recognizing all the things I have, no matter how small, and started giving thanks for each of them. Every morning I deliberately thought about the joy of being alive and started thanking God for it.

I started writing down everything I am grateful for and made a point of writing thank you letters and notes to everybody I was happy to have be a part of my life; especially to those whom I realized I had taken for granted and had never taken the time to thank.  

As I embarked on this gratitude quest in uncertain times, I was even thankful to have myself to believe in, as I realized I was lucky to count on anything, even the small things I had right in front of me.

Benefits of practicing Gratitude

There is endless science backing the benefits of practicing gratitude. People who regularly practice gratitude in their day-to-day by taking the time to notice and reflect upon the things they’re grateful for experience following benefits:

• Better mental health
• Increased feeling of spirituality and peace of mind.
• Improved sleep.
• Improved relationships with others.
• Boost in emotional health.
• Enhanced empathy.
• Reduced aggression.
• Greater feelings of satisfaction with life.
• Stronger immune systems
• Reduced reaction to innermost fears.

Let me know your thoughts and what you’re doing to practice gratitude everyday. 😘

Simply give thanks. Everyday is Thanksgiving Day.