Gratitude Is a Choosen Attribute

      From the very get go, I want to be sure everyone realizes I am not a pie in the sky, head in the clouds optimist who goes around with a smile on my face and an empty head.  Life can be hard.  It can be downright brutally disappointing at times. 
      No doubt, everyone of us faces discouragements and challenges.  The question is, will we allow our circumstances to make us cross and cranky, or worse yet, embitter us?  It's important to realize the decision to be grateful is not a decision to pretend we have no problems.  However, we can CHOOSE to see life gratefully.  In fact, developing our capacity to be aware of blessings is essential to our happiness.
      I was talking to a friend, just this morning.  She was expressing her gratitude for the blessing of perfect timing in her life.  I'm going to briefly recount some of her experiences over the past few months:

• She had to quit her job at Walmart because the hours of standing had become too hard on her body.
• Two of her children announced that they were getting married. The weddings would be just one week apart, and she only had a matter of weeks to prepare for them.                                  
• In the middle of wedding preparations, her husband became unexpectedly ill and was confined to the hospital with a life threatening blood clot beween 4 different organs.  His doctors said it was a miracle that he survived with his intestines intact.
• The weddings took place. Within days my friend found herself in great pain and was admitted to the hospital for gall bladder surgery.

      Most of us would react to those stressful months as nothing but a huge trial.  We would fail to see there was much there but a long list of difficulties to try our patience and resources.  However, this morning my friend said to me, "Wow, can you believe the timing of things?  I left my job just before the kids decided to get married, so, I had time to prepare for the weddings, and  I was able to take care of my husband when he needed me.   My own problems came and I was fully recovered just in time to accept a great new job I've been offered.  The timing has been perfect!!"
      Now there's someone who CHOOSES to be grateful; someone who has developed the capacity to see how very blessed she's been.
      In an online article entitled, “How Gratitude Can Change Your Life: For the Better”, writer Shelly Stile tells us, “Research reports that grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life….given the perspective that gratitude gifts us, we are undoubtedly more equipped to handle life’s challenges"  (www.buzzle.com/articles/how-gratitude-can-change-your-life-for-the-better.com).
      Great.  So all of this is fine to talk about, but HOW do we do it?  How do we develop this quality of gratitude that allows us to be so equipped?  Although it isn't especially easy (at least I haven't found it so), there are lots of ways to get there.  Many of them are even FUN, and all of them are rewarding, if given due time. 
      Today I will begin with the one tried and true method everyone has heard of: keeping a Gratitude Journal.
      Either purchase a bound journal, or just use a notebook.  Plain paper even qualifies.  The important thing is to keep your thoughts in a place where you can access and add to them.
      Research has shown that it is no more effective to write in a Gratitude Journal several times a week than it is to write just once a week (see online: Better Mood from Gratitude: 2 Minute Exercise-Start Now).   However, I suggest you begin by writing daily for the first week, then do it once a week.  Initially, you need to set the pattern.
     At the end of each day write down two or three things that blessed your day.  That's it.  Then sleep on those happy thoughts.
      Can't wait for Monday when I can share with you one of my FAVORITE ways of enjoying a sense of gratitude.  Talk to you then.

         Have a Blessed Weekend!!


TODAY'S INSPIRING QUOTATION: 
"Deprived thinking turns good things into less or nothing, and...grateful thinking turns all things into more"  Melody Beattie.