Feeling Grateful – 5 Ways To Cultivate Gratitude In Your Life

Why is feeling grateful so powerful?

Acknowledging good things in your life is confirmation to the universe that you’re ready for more.

So what are some of the benefits of feeling grateful?

• Practicing gratitude has the ability to increase positive emotions in people.
• You enjoy your good experiences more.
• Your health benefits increase from affirmations of feeling grateful.
• When adversity hits, you are able to deal with it more efficiently.
• Relationships you build seem more genuine and stronger.

Bottom line is, you need to appreciate what you have instead of haphazardly reaching for the unknown, hoping it will make you a happier person. Gratitude focusses your attention on what you have instead of what you lack.

And the benefit of this?

Practicing gratitude strengthens your mental state. The more you feel grateful the stronger your mental state grows.

This is why you practice gratitude daily. In fact, practice it at every opportunity of the day.

I’ll list five ways you can cultivate gratitude below but firstly, when people say ‘that’s fine and all but what about when bad things happen to you’.

Our response has always been that bad things happen to everyone at some stage in their lives. Are they gratitude moments?

Yes they are. Because even when bad things happen to you and you deal with them at the end of it, thank the universe that you were able to learn from that experience and move on.

You always learn from every experience you have whether it’s success or failure.

I know it’s tough when you are going through adversity but use it as an opportunity to tell the universe that this was a teachable moment. You are grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow.

Feeling Grateful – How To Cultivate Gratitude

Here are five ways you can cultivate gratitude. Many of you will use each of these at different times during the day.

1. Affirmations or praying. Whether you’re religious or not, affirmations and prayer provide the most powerful form of delivering your gratitude.

2. Write what you’re feeling grateful about. The power of writing something down and being able to see it in black and white cannot be underestimated. This is particularly powerful when showing gratitude to people who you want to thank. Write them a note expressing your gratitude and watch magic happen.

3. Thank someone in your thoughts. In your quiet moments, think of the good things people have done for you. Feel it and then thank them mentally. This is not often taught but is extremely potent. And the best part, you can do this all day long without anyone around you knowing.

4. Reflect on your blessings. We recommend doing this once or twice a week, preferably before you go to bed. Pick several moments during the previous few day you benefitted from and write them down. Then affirm them out loud. Remember, even if it was negative but you learnt from it, write it down.

5. Gratitude Journal. This is a daily exercise of expressing gratitude. Again, it’s in written form. Write down what you were grateful for during the day. In other words, it’s about the gifts you received or the teachable moments you experienced.

Gratitude – Is Your Glass Half Full Or Half Empty?

Dr. Melanie Barton, LCSW, Ed.D says she aims to get her clients seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.

People who are depressed or anxious in particular, can see a positive turnaround quickly simply through feeling grateful.

Dr. Barton says she helps her clients to craft a gratitude list which they add to every day.

It’s a twenty one day method which provides excellent results.

“Are you familiar with Dr. Emoto and his work with water? And are you familiar with Dr. Caroline Leaf?”.

“So the two of them talk about the effect of words on water and on the genetics and the body”.

“So when I have somebody that’s depressed and anxious, I have them make up a gratitude list and then I have them add to it day by day”.

“And I also have them say it out loud”.

“I created from Dr. Caroline Leaf’s work, a twenty one day program where there’s a positive statement you say each day”.

“It’s something you’re grateful for. For example, day one is to be still. So you have a think about it and then ask ‘what does that mean to be still – how can I be still’?”

“And when they can think about that, talk about that and verbalize it, not just mentally, but also audibly, it balances them out and it attracts more of the good to them”.

“This is done so that they’ll see the glass half full instead of half empty”.

Feeling Grateful Every Day

Many people will respond with something like “but what do I have to feel grateful about?”

The sarcastic response is “well, you’re still breathing aren’t you?”

This relates to Dr. Barton’s coaching people who are feeling depressed, anxious or even lack.

The mindset is in the wrong place. But unless a person decides to take the first step of getting back into a positive frame of mind, then none of this will help. The practice of gratitude with action is required.

Feeling grateful daily and writing it down is a positive first step in cultivating the things you want in your life.

But doing it daily takes it to the next level.