What are the benefits to having a thankful heart?
- You become a magnet for goodness because you are looking for the good in your life and are open to finding it.
- Gratitude gives rise to more gratitude.
- You are more fun and interesting to be around because you aren’t always complaining about your rotten life.
- You feel empowered because you are taking positive action.
- When you are willing to help yourself, others want to help you.
- Gratitude lifts the spirit, opens the heart, and nourishes the soul.
With all of these benefits, why do so many of us choose to focus on the glass being half empty?
- It’s easy to focus on the negative.
- Feeling ungrateful is comfortable and familiar.
- Feeling ungrateful becomes a habit.
- You like the attention you get.
- You want an excuse to escape through drugs, alcohol, food, and so on.
- You need help breaking the cycle and are afraid to ask.
How do we get to a place of having a full and thankful heart? With all that goes on in our day-to-day lives, how do we get to see the glass half full rather than half empty? Here are some useful steps to consider:
- Knowing that gratitude is an action which needs to be practiced daily. For example, you don’t write a gratitude list once and then forget about it. It helps when it becomes a daily or weekly practice.
- Be willing to see the good. While It’s easy to focus on the bad, it takes effort to see the good, whether it’s in a person or a situation.
- Say thank you every chance you get, it goes a long way. First, it softens your heart because it forces you to appreciate something about someone else. Second, it makes others feel valued and more likely to reciprocate. And even if they don’t, your act of thoughtfulness goes a long way in nourishing your soul.
- Make an effort to see something positive in every situation. That doesn’t mean you must always be happy and walk around with a smile on your face. It means you make an effort to acknowledge the things you have to be thankful for.
You see, anger takes up space, while gratitude creates space. Unquestionably, life is unfair, and yes, there are things we want that we can’t have. When we shift the focus to what we have rather than what we don’t, our consciousness is transformed. Ironically, we then open ourselves up to new ways of making happen what we want to happen.
Until next time, I’m Francine Ward, Author, Lecturer, and Self Esteem coach, sharing bold, yet simple ways to build self esteem. Join my conversation on
