What Are You Grateful For?
I sometimes wonder if the reason we have ‘World Gratitude Day’ on September 21st is to link it with the Season of Autumn.
At this time of year we acknowledge the abundance reaped from Spring and Summer as we move into Autumn and celebrate Harvest. This is a time of the year when we show gratitude for what we have been given so it makes sense that we think about the good things that we have. To take stock of all those good things that we might not necessarily pay attention to each day. To really take the time to recognise, to acknowledge and to enjoy all the good things, the sparkling moments, in our lives.
This is what I help my clients to do. With my solution focused approach I help them to notice what is good in their life.
We really can train the brain to focus on the positives, the ‘goods’, rather than the negatives by practicing gratitude.
Gratitude is such a powerful, positive emotion and practicing it daily can really help us in challenging times, in difficult situations. Quite simply when we are grateful we are acknowledging the goodness in our lives. We can be grateful for the people in our lives, for the experiences we have, for the opportunities we have. And when we are being grateful we are focusing our attention on what have rather than what we don’t have. This makes us feel good and we feel good because we are producing lovely, positive chemicals in our brain. We get rewarded with the lovely neurotransmitters serotonin,oxytocin and dopamine which make us feel happier, more able to cope and reduces our levels of anxiety, stress and fear. How good is that?
Gratitude improves our health and well being.
This is being acknowledged by science more and more. It reduces negative emotions and helps people with depression and anxiety. Research has shown that being grateful makes us feel happier, decreases our stress, reduces inflammation, lifts our mood, increases motivation, improves our quality of sleep and develops our emotional awareness and resilience. Our whole being, from physical to psychological, is helped enormously from daily gratitude practice.
Did you know that you cannot think a positive and a negative thought at the same time?
And the good news is that the more you do it, the more you practice gratitude, the more you develop pathways in the brain that favour looking for the positives rather than the negatives. When we are grateful, when we pay attention to the good things in our world, we are strengthening and reinforcing those positive memories. By recalling the good things, the sparkling moments, and remembering them, we are ingraining them more deeply into our memory. So you can train your brain into noticing what you are grateful for. You can train your brain to pay attention to the positive aspects of your life rather than focusing on the negative. And when you recall the good things, you get the happiness buzz all over again. How wonderful is that?
Below are some tips to inspire you to practice gratitude daily and I hope you find these ideas useful.
1. Make it part of your night time routine
At the end of the day is a great time to think about what has been good about your day. A time to count your blessings. This will boost your serotonin levels and increase the likelihood of having a better night’s sleep.
2. Keep a gratitude journal
Get a notebook or diary to write in and start off by jotting down 2 or 3 things that have been good. It can be things or people you are grateful for, things that have made you feel good or smile, things that gave you pleasure. This number will soon increase as you practice gratitude because you will train your brain to be actively looking for the positives in your life.
3. Keep a gratitude jar
Find a glass jar and every day on a small piece of paper write one thing that you are grateful for. It could be your family, your health, your friends etc. This is a lovely activity to do over a period of time, for example it could be as short as one week or as long as one year. And as you see the jar getting more full, you feel more blessed. Then when the period of time comes to an end, and you read those pieces of paper, it reinforces those positive memories and feeling of gratitude.
4. Have a family gratitude time
A good time to do this is at mealtimes. When you sit together ask each other what has been good about your day. If you live on your own you can still do this with a family member or friend by calling them on the phone or video link or texting them.
5. Write a thank you note or leave a nice review on a web page
There is nothing nicer than to receive a thank you and it’s such an easy thing to do. I know whenever someone thanks me I’m literally bursting with happiness all day! I challenge you to write a thank you to someone right now and sprinkle some happiness around.
So as you move forward in life take a moment to notice all the good things, all the sparkly things, in your world. Take a moment to be grateful for the wonderful, amazing person that you are and just take note of how far you have already come.
We are in challenging times at the moment and practicing gratitude will really help us to cope and make sense of the world in the months ahead.
If you would like more information or are interested to know how the solution focused approach can help you cope much better with the roller-coaster of life, then please get in touch – you’ll be glad you did!
Love Jayne ❤
