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Why is it so important to develop a robust and regular gratitude practice?
1- The average person has 12-60k thoughts/day.
2- 80% of those are negative.
3- 95% are exactly the same as the day before.
4- 85% of what we worry about never happens.
The National Science Foundation and Cornell University in the US:
For those of you who have followed Tim Ferriss – no fewer than 80% of the people he has interviewed in his podcast have a daily routine where they consciously practise gratitude.
The interviewees are a selection of billionaires, massively successful entrepreneurs / actors / musicians etc…
Tim Ferriss and his friends demonstrate that a daily meditation and gratitude practice is quite literally invaluable; it proactively overturns our innate tendency to negative self talk and redresses the balance.
being-grateful-improves-your-chances-of-success-studies-show
Gratitude is defined as the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
A regular gratitude practice actually rewires our brain. Consciously finding things to be thankful for, no matter how bad the situation we find ourselves in, teaches us to recognise the positives in every situation. It develops resilience, and resilience better equips us to overcome psychological stressors.
Gratitude works both ways- a regular gratitude practice has been called
the open door to abundance
I use the “Five Minute Journal” app for my daily gratitude practise. It’s quick and easy thing to do with the first cup of tea in the morning. It offers an inspirational quote, the facility to upload a photo for the day, and asks for 3 things you will do to make today great. It then has a space for affirmations, and an evening review section. I’m not quite so good at completing the evening review, but I do enjoy looking back at past entries and past affirmations. And yes, I know it’s been said before, but it is amazing how much can change in a life in a year. With proactive observation and the implementation of good self care habits.
It is as true of humans as it is of horses; we are either improving or deteriorating ourselves every day. We choose. You won’t be the same person in a year, you won’t be in the same head space….why not consciously choose better.
Practising gratitude is not all about relentlessly chasing the positives in the face of death and despair. We can also acknowledge our dark times, and be grateful for the strength to cope with them.
In our darkest moments, it may be that the only thing we have to be thankful for is the strength to carry on.
The strange determination to keep breathing, no matter what.
One of my favourite quotes
“Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love”
For me, this a reminder that every moment we live, every breath we take, is the result of a conscious choice.
8-ways-to-have-more-gratitude-every-day
Sometimes, in the dark times, my regular gratitude practice has involved simple thanks for every breath.
As my asthmatic friend pointed out, in response to the previous instalment,
not everyone on this planet gets to take breathing for granted.
The ongoing environmental disaster in Australia is a stark example of this; the air was so heavily laden with ash and soot that the fire alarms were going off inside air conditioned buildings, causing people to be evacuated to stand outside in the even more acrid, smoke laden air they had been trying to escape from.
“All I need is the air that I breathe“
What can we do when the air itself becomes deadly?
The funny thing that if we just persist and endure, the sun will always comes out in the end.
The sun is always there, above the clouds. Just because the light is hidden doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
But we can’t ignore the clouds either.
Focussing on Positivity alone is toxic
At some point in our journey, be it towards wisdom, or enlightenment, or just plain sanity and functionality, whether we are examining the contents of our own head, or our own navel, working out just what triggers which dread and what emotion lives with what feeling, we will have to deal with the night horrors too. We can’t just focus on the light, we have to deal with the shadows to find our way through to the light again.
To grow, to learn and to heal, we have to find a way to sit with our discomfort and take in the lessons.
What we will not look at, will not feel—in ourselves, or in the world—we cannot address.
We have to learn the importance of chasing our shadows, not just glance away from the painful and difficult parts of our apprenticeship. Like Le Guin’s Ged, chasing the shadow is the most important quest of our life, and the integration of our shadow being is the magic that makes us whole.
Thank you as always for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. To those influencers who comment, share the site with friends or help to promote in any other way, I remain eternally grateful. To those supporters generous and able to offer funds, whether small or large, karma is finding its way back to you with a rainbow of horses and abundance beyond dreams. Thank you all for joining in the adventure.
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