Is There Any Real Power in Gratitude?

By Shirley Muhammad

I believe that any day is a good day to talk about gratitude and how life changing it can be. I know for myself that counting my blessings always brightens my day and puts a smile on my face.

Although they are important, gratitude isn’t just about the major things in your life. Gratitude also comes from acknowledging the small, everyday aspects of your life that bring you joy and makes you happy.

But does giving gratitude provide any measurable benefits? Is there power in gratitude? I recently found out that there is a new science called Positive Psychology that aims to prove scientifically just how life changing and powerful saying “thank you” can be.

Recent studies have shown that people who focus on showing gratitude get more exercise, sleep better, are generally happier and positively improve their attitude in ways that even co-workers, friends and family can recognize. There are also studies that found that expressing gratitude can eliminate headaches, reduce stress and alleviate allergies.

One of the best ways I have found to get into “gratitude state” is to write in a gratitude journal. Your journal doesn’t have to be anything fancy. In fact, a simple notebook will do. Just write everyday about what you are grateful for.

It could be about finding an old friend on Facebook or a day without arguing with your teenage daughter. Maybe you are grateful for the smile you got from the grocery store clerk or the leftover dinner that you had for lunch. It really doesn’t matter what you write. The important thing is to write about what is good in your life right now regardless of how simple or corny you think it is.

Later you can look back and reflect on what you wrote. This is especially helpful when you are in a funk and can’t seem to think of anything to be grateful for. Just read your previous journal entries, smile and watch as your gratitude juices start to flow again.

So let this day be your stepping stone to a year long and hopefully life long journey of constant gratitude. You won’t need a scientist to prove to you the benefits of gratitude because you will have your very own testimony of just how Powerful it really is.

Shirley Muhammad helps others set up and run their own home based business. She loves connecting with people and marketing her business through social media networks and other online arenas. For more articles about network marketing, social media marketing and personal development, visit her blog at http://www.shirleymuhammad.com.

You may reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained. http://www.shirleymuhammad.com

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What Is Gratitude?

What Is Gratitude?

Personally, I think that many people don’t really understand what gratitude really is.

How many times have we heard things like “He’s not grateful for the money I gave him!” or “She’s not grateful for this or that that I have done for them!”?

First of all, we have no way of knowing the gratitude that the receiver feels in these situations, but I can tell you this much, if you are making statements like the ones above, you are not giving freely or with an open heart!

Some people have a hard time expressing gratitude outwardly.

Sometimes all you will receive in return is a simple thank you when inside the recipient of your good deed is welling up and ready to burst into tears of gratitude.

We are trained to hold our emotions in, including the ones of gratitude!

When you give a gift, be thankful that you can!

When you give of yourself don’t look for anything in return.

Be satisfied in knowing that you have done the right thing, that your blessing has helped another and you will be blessed in return, maybe not the way you expect it, but you will be.

Gratitude comes from within, it is an appreciation of all that is good and welcome in our lives. Gratitude is expressed when we openly give thanks for those things.

When someone does something for us we are trained to say, “Thank you”, but how often do we really feel the thank you that we are giving?

Think back to a time when you were just so overwhelmed with something someone had done for you and you just had to blurt out a thank you.

That feeling of thanks, of gratitude, could not be contained.

If you were to stop and feel the thank you each time you gave it, you would be living in gratitude.

If you were to stop and feel how much you love and enjoy any little thing in your life, you would be living in gratitude.

Some people think that gratitude has to go deeper than giving thanks for the “things” in our lives and be more spiritual.

I say that every little thing in your life that gives you even the slightest bit of joy, every little thing that makes your day a little easier is worthy of true gratitude.

True gratitude is spiritual and fills the heart with warmth and joy!

When you can stop and say, “I really do love my coffee pot! It brews me a wonderful cup of coffee and I enjoy every sip! If it wasn’t for that coffee pot I may not have such a great cup of coffee!”, and truly feel the love and appreciation for the coffee pot, the coffee beverage and even the cup you are holding, to feel the joy that those things bring into your life, that my dear friends, that is feeling gratitude!

Mary Angela, Author, Philosopher, Lover of Life!
Understanding The Secret

May the road rise with you

May the sun always be at your back

And may God hold you in the hollow of his hand

Until we meet again!

With Love

Mary Angela

How to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude

How to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude

When you are grateful about something and you really and truly focus your attention on being in a constant state of gratitude you will bring more of what you are grateful for into your life. It always works and it never fails because it is truly what you want.

God /The Universe or whatever it is that you call your higher power really wants you to live a life of Abundance in all area’s of your life from your relationships to your finances, to your material possessions, because he/she wants you to live a abundant life.

When you hold on to the thoughts and feelings that you have for your life and you are grateful what you already have and you are transmitting that positive energy you will attract more of the positive and good things that you want out of life no matter what it is simply because you want it. No one else can stop or take away what you want because it is what you want not what they want we are all different living in the same world.

Try these 3 Steps Of Gratitude Daily:

1. Create rituals to remember your gratitude.

A great ritual that you can do is to make a habit of silently listing all the things you’re grateful for as soon as you wake up. I do this every single morning before I get out of bed. I know I’m not the only one that has a difficult time getting out of bed, so this really helps me to start my day with a feeling of joy and gratitude. This same practice can be applied at night as well and can have a great effect on your quality of sleep and dreams.

2. Write down what you’re grateful for.

When we write about what we’re grateful and thankful for, we’re moving our thoughts to the material realm where they will manifest themselves in abundance in our lives. This can be a powerful process and allows us to physically see the abundance in our lives.

3. Use a gratitude rock.

Find a nice smooth rock that feels good when you hold it. Now name this rock your “gratitude rock.” Put it in your pocket or purse and carry it around with you wherever you go. Whenever you reach in your pocket and feel it, remember what you’re grateful for.

You can also use any other object you like, or even a color. Whenever I see the color green it reminds me of gratitude for life and the earth. Perhaps yours is the sky. Whatever is personal and has meaning to you is most important.

If we’re simply grateful for life itself, we can be thankful even when we have nothing. Our gratitude is rooted in the permanent and not ever-changing landscape of our lives.

We live in a feeling universe everything that we do as humans has a feeling behind it in one way or another. So if you want to change your life and have freedom from your employer or current financial situation be grateful and thankful for what you have in your life right now and declare what you want to God/The Universe and do your part and God/The Universe will do his and manifest what you want in your life. If you want more money and more freedom to do what you want to do practice these 3 techniques of Gratitude.

If we can find a way to have gratitude in each moment of our lives, our lives will improve dramatically. Begin each day and live each moment in gratitude and Watch your life transform.

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Enjoy The Journey Of Becoming What You Want To Be An What You Want Out Of Life!

Love , Joy, Peace, Happiness, Health, And Wealth Is Your Birth Right You Can Have It!

Practicing Gratitude For More Abundance in Your Life

Practicing Gratitude For More Abundance in Your Life

One of the newest talked about ways to improve life is The Law of Attraction. It is not just a gimmicky way to get the things that you want in your life. The Law of Attraction is about attracting the many things that you want in your life with a little bit of work.

One of the most common ways to use The Law of Attraction is by making a gratitude list or keeping a gratitude journal. There are two basic types of gratitude lists that people make. The first lists what we are grateful for each day. The second type of list incorporates the visioning process.

Movies like The Secret have made popular the vision board. A vision board is simply an illustration of the things that you want in the future. These items aren’t necessarily all material. They can be spiritual, emotional, relational, etc. As you are visioning, express your gratitude. Feel gratitude and act “as if” you have already your goals.

Today’s society has helped to hard wire us to be negative about the things that we do not have yet. Based on the Law of Attraction, acting this way actually attracts more negativity to us-like attracts like. With practice, “acting as if” and feeling gratitude towards those things that are in our vision will become more of a habit.

The most important reason that everyone should have a vision is that you attract what you send out into the universe. If you send out positive thoughts and feelings, then you will receive these same feelings back. As we share with the universe our goals and our gratitude towards them, we are attracting those very goals to us. This simple process can help you to achieve the abundance that you have always wanted in your life.

A gratitude journal and a vision board or journal is a place where you can keep and organize your goals and your thoughts on them. Once you have written your goals down, you can continue to read them every day and feel gratitude towards them. This will help to keep you focused on your goals. With everything going on through the course of your day, it can be easy to forget the goals that you have set for yourself. A gratitude journal can serve as a helpful reminder to keep you on track to achieve your goals.

Keeping a gratitude journal is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself. The action of writing words down on paper will help you take the first steps to achieving the abundance in your life. Whether your gratitude journal is kept online or in a leather bound journal, this will truly be the one tool that will help to change your life. Sit down and begin to keep your gratitude journal today to see a change in your life from this day forward.

Let gratitude become a regular part of your day. Visit the Gratitude Circle Blog for tips on positive thinking and making gratitude an important part of your life. While you’re there, claim your free subscription to the Gratitude Circle Newsletter, chalk-full of inspiring stories, articles and tips for maintaining a happier, more fulfilling life.

5 Easy Ways to Create an Attitude of Gratitude

By Jackie Lee

Gratitude is possibly the most powerful way to change your life. The power of gratitude is this; the more things you are grateful for the more things you will experience to be grateful for. This is the law of attraction at work, and is superbly expressed in gratitude.

Even if you are the most ungrateful person, gratitude can become a new way of life. Here’s 5 ways to begin to create an attitude of gratitude.

1. Choose. Gratitude is a choice. The first thing to do is choose that you will be grateful, and decide to notice around you those things to be grateful for.

2. Breathing. When stuck in a rough spot take a minute, close your eyes and breathe. On your inhale breathe in the words “I choose”. On your exhale breathe out a word like Peace, Calm, Gratitude, Love, Serenity; whichever feels best for you. Like all things in life, this works best when if feels good to you.

3. Play. Kids love “I Spy”. It’s a gratitude game when you put a twist on it. When you are “spying” be looking for things to be grateful for. When you find something call out “I spy with my grateful eye. . .” whatever it is that you see and feel grateful for. This is a great game to play with kids to instill an attitude of gratitude early in life.

4. Journal. Start a gratitude journal. Each night before you go to sleep take some time, it doesn’t have to be long, to write down 5 things you were grateful for today, and 5 things that you are grateful for about yourself. Do this for 30 days and you will be amazed.

5. Rampage. This doesn’t sound like gratitude, but I’m talking about a “Rampage of Appreciation” This comes from Abraham-Hicks, and works amazingly well. When you get into a funk or a bad mood start appreciating everything. Start with the air you have to breathe, and then really quickly just notice everything around you and be grateful for it. I especially enjoy doing this in the car.

An attitude of Gratitude is a powerful way to change your life. When you start focusing on all there is to be grateful for you will begin to notice there are more things to be grateful for, and as you notice more things to be grateful for, more things… well I think you get the point!

Those are 5 of my favorite gratitude techniques and I’ve left out my favorite and most powerful technique. But I’ll share it with you because I want you to feel GOOD!

The Power of an Attitude of Gratitude

By Robin Tramble

We often find ourselves regretting where we are in life. This sends us on a spiraling journey downward as we begin complaining and nourishing fear which is the enemy of faith.

One key area in living a prosperous life is having an attitude of gratitude.

Let’s take a look further into the definition of gratitude. Gratitude-State of being grateful. Grateful-Thankful or appreciative.

Having an attitude of gratitude will provide the following benefits, not necessarily in the order written.

Provides clear vision.

Allows free course for Father God to reward you.

Stops the cancer of murmuring and complaining in it’s Tracks.

Ignites the fire for an atmosphere of praise.

An attitude of gratitude will render an altitude of Good success.

You can take time to think of a few more. The word tells us in I Thess 5:18 to give thanks in everything.

Give thanks for your temple. God’s gift to us is life what we do with it is our gift to Him.

This is not speaking of being thankful that you had an accident, being thankful that you lost your job, being thankful that your children don’t have clothes or food to eat. No! It is speaking of an attitude of thankfulness, gratitude and thereby praise. Let’s put it this way, it may seem that you’ve lost more than you imagined that you would at this time, however, an attitude of gratitude would be thankful that you didn’t lose it all.

Thanks in the greek means; eucharisteo (Yoo-khar-is-the’-o) to be grateful, (act) to express gratitude (towards).

Live long and prosper with an attitude of gratitude.

Your attitude determines your altitude.

(c) Robin G. Tramble

Feel free to reprint or use the above article on your website or in your ezines/newsletters as long as you leave everything as is, including resource box.

Robin Tramble is a Motivational Speaker / Life coach/ Mentor-Trainer/Author and Editor and Publisher of Time2prosper group/newsletter, http://www.time2prosper.homestead.com a newsletter and group providing information, articles, resources and support to inspire, motivate and encourage women to become empowered to believe, achieve and be all God has designed them to be.

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The Necessity Of Gratitude

By Betsy Landau

Gratitude is becoming quickly a central concept in the area of Positive Psychology. While there are various ways to express gratitude, what seems most important is that you find a way to express it that works for you. Frequently, a gratitude journal is used. You have a specific notebook that is devoted just to writing what you’re grateful for. The gratitudes need to stay fresh and you need to be emotionally invested when you write them if gratitude is to develop and deepen. For this reason, often writing daily is not the best route. Nor is reporting over and over the same items for which you are grateful, even though certainly you are still grateful for them. Expressing gratitude requires an “alive” and vibrant experience. You need to allow yourself to feel the gratitude in your body.

Other ways to express gratitude include writing a letter of gratitude to individuals to whom you either have not expressed gratitude or to whom you feel a need to express more gratitude. Reading the letter to the person, in person, often enhances the experience of gratitude as well as draws you and the person closer to one another.

Sometimes simply telling people that you’re grateful for something about them, or for the relationship, or for what they did, can boost your experience of gratitude. It will likely, as well, lead to greater happiness.

Certainly Robert Emmons in his recent book, THANKS, has shown from empirical evidence how expressing gratitude does in reality lead to happy lives. And, who would not like a happy life? So, frequent doses of gratitude expression are a route to that goal. Enough cannot be said about the positive outcomes of expressing gratitude. According to Emmons, Sonja Lyubomirsky (THE HOW OF HAPPINESS), and too many others to mention all, some of the other benefits found have included, better physical and emotional well being, improved social relationships, better work relationships, and more optimism.

At first it can be uncomfortable to express gratitude when you’re not used to it. So it is with any new behavior. But, over time it can become as routine as brushing your teeth. And it can be a whole lot more fun.

Betsy Landau is a licensed psychologist, life and writing coach, adjunct professor of psychology, author, and publisher. She is a certified Life Coach by MentorCoach LLC. Her recent book Mirabelle’s Memoirs: a feline tale is available on amazon.com. Her passion is helping people change their lives. To find out more about coaching with Betsy Landau, and to sign up for her free newsletter, go to http://www.betsylandau.com

Positive Attitude: Being Grateful to Have It

By Zack Lim

What I will be sharing with you in this article will be on the importance of being grateful and how it will be enable you to have a positive attitude. Having a gratitude which will cause us to have a positive attitude is very important to us as attitude is the key to all success in life.

Now the first thing that you can do is to be grateful to the terrible things that has happen to you before. Why should you do so? The first reason will be when we meet terrible things with the feeling of gratitude; we will feel better as the feeling of gratitude always feels good. The second reason is that we will always face problems in life. When you know that there must be some reason why you are in these problems, you will be more open to it. When you are grateful for being able to find the reason, you will start to have a positive attitude towards problem.

Be grateful of whatever things that you have and the person that is around you. You can be grateful to the basic things that you have around your life like food, water, electricity etc. When you start to think of that, you will be more appreciative of the things around you and you will have a feeling of gratitude. Who gets the gratitude is not as important as your own feeling of gratitude. Try to look for things that you can be grateful for so that you can always feel the joy of gratitude. It can even be someone that you are close to or person that has really influence you. This will in turn slowly changes and trains your mind to have a positive attitude as you will have. When you have the joy of gratitude, the negative thinking will instantly be gone.

So having a gratitude feeling and being grateful to the things that you have will helps in the development of having a positive attitude in the mind. Gratitude will open a place in you to receive. So start having a feeling of gratitude and have a positive attitude today.

Zack Lim is the owner of http://self-improvement.atspace.com providing information on positive attitude. To get Free “7 Days to Positive Thinking” course, go to http://self-improvement.atspace.com This article is free for republishing by visitors provided the resource link is retained

How much have you learned ?

How many times do we get caught up in life……

And forget what we learned along the way….

Can you imagine if you had to get by today with the knowledge you had  twenty years ago ? Stop and think for a minute about how many things you do differently now, and how different your reasoning has become over time.  How may people have contributed to what you know ?

Most of them will probably never know. It may have been something you read, or something picked up in a conversation, or something from a movie. But every little thing made a difference. Made you a more complete, capable person.  All the little bits and pieces added up , resulting in your capacity for reasoning today.

Something to be grateful for……

You  would have been so much less without it…..

Tough Days……..

In the wink of an eye, a good day can turn sour. Although you still have plenty to be grateful for – the same as when you woke up, you can for get lost in frustration, forgetting that whatever it is, it will pass. In an instant you can forget all good intentions you had when you woke up. All the commitment to positive thinking goes out the window, and you devote your total attention to the situation, letting it swallow you.

Take note…..

LETTING It swallow you. You allow circumstances to control you, and change the course of your day. Sometimes justifiably so, but sometimes for something that’s just not worth it…….