Gratitude isn’t just being grateful when something goes right or doesn’t go wrong. It’s being grateful for what you already have and who you already are. At the start of 2014, I read The Magic by Rhonda Byrne (she’s the lady behind The Secret). It’s an incredibly inspiring book which sees you practice 28 consecutive days of gratitude, consisting of different activities each day. After which you are able to find gratitude in the most basic of things, even on the really rubbish days. You even start thanking your bills. Yep, you heard right!
“Every day is a good day, some are just better than others.” – Dany Martin
So now I make it a non-negotiable to find moments of gratitude throughout every day and practice it in all shapes and forms.
Here are a few of the ways:
- I keep a gratitude diary. It’s become my Sunday ritual to sit with a glass of coconut water and fill out a page as soon as I get up to reflect and find gratitude in moments or events over the past week. It sets me up perfectly for my morning yoga class. This would be the number one practice I recommend starting your gratitude practice with. Buy a notebook you love and start the page, Today I am grateful for… and just write away.
Other gratitude practices to try out:
- I read 2-3 affirmations out loud and often to my husband as I hop into bed (I keep a copy of Treasure Yourself by Miranda Kerr on the bedside table) as well as some affirmation cards I was gifted.
- Hubby and I share our gratitude with each other. Some nights we forget (or he falls asleep first) but we aim to ask each other what three things we are grateful for that day. And then I go to sleep going through my day and all the many more things I am grateful for. It may seem silly but it allows me to drift off in a positive mood, without dwelling on anything that creates negative thinking.
- When I take my dog Cajun for a walk, I generally listen to some personal development at the same time and I always pause to take a moment and look around and just be grateful for where I am and what I have.
- I keep affirmation cards and quotes and posts everywhere in my office! Each morning once I step inside to kick off my work day, I pick a card from my The Love Letter Collective stack and that’s my mantra for the day.
- I prime three mornings a week. I first learned this when attending a Tony Robbin’s event in September last year and it’s a practice I’ve kept up consistently ever since. It’s too powerful not to! You can YouTube some recordings and follow along but it’s basically 15 minutes of gratitude and visualisation and it always leaves me feeling super grateful no matter what my mindset was like when I woke up. I’m not embarrassed to say that quite often I well up during these sessions too, so overwhelmed with gratitude. It’s another lovely practice hubby and I connect on now as he practices this several mornings a week too.
- At the end of yoga class during our 5 minutes of meditation or ‘savasana’, the way I stop my mind drifting is to find some moments of gratitude. It might even just be being grateful for the class I just had. Again, if I’m very connected to my flow and gratitude that day I often find myself shed a tear or two during this time.
So, what have you learned from all this – other than the fact I’m clearly a very sentimental and emotional Piscean! LOL ;p
Well, simply put – what you put out, you bring about. You are what you attract. So, switch your mindset and be positive, open and non-judgemental. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, then how can you expect to receive more?
Carla xx
Carla Thomas, Holistic Health and Business Coach
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Website : www.carlathomas.com.au