Why Should We Be Greatful?

How many times a day do you find yourself wanting something you don't have? Or having something that you don’t want? If you're like most people, it's more often than you think.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting something which you don't have, or having something which you don’t want. It's human nature. You may want more money, or a bigger home, maybe? How about a leaner more muscular body? Or better health?

Your well being is at the very core of your existence. Being happy with who you are and what you have right now while at the same time wanting more is essential to your well being. However, you must remove all doubt, unworthiness and impatience from your thoughts. Learn to accept and appreciate that which you have now by living with an attitude of gratitude.

When life is good, gratitude is easy. It becomes more challenging to be grateful when we experience hard times. Financial hardship, long-term illness, the death of a loved one and marital strife can all be trying and difficult. It is hard to find anything to be grateful for.

But we have a choice in how we view our circumstances. We can turn our hearts to God and trust that he has a plan for us. We can be thankful for the lessons we learn and the opportunities for personal growth and transformation. Look at all the people in this world who share the gifts they received during especially difficult times of their life. It is the painful times of our life that will make us stronger, wiser, and more loving.

We are who we are, loaded with possibilities, because of everything that has happened to us – not just the events that look positive on the surface. Losing your job could free you up for a better one. The despair of crushing debt forced us to learn how to handle wealth, which must happen before we are entrusted with it.

Life works in mysterious ways. Time and time again there have been stories of people who are in a dire straits yet they are found helping others who are experiencing greater turmoil. This is because once you have helped someone in greater need than yourself, you always feel better. You feel better because you have helped another human being, and this forces you to change your mindset from focusing on your problems to focusing on their solutions.

All of these things help make us who we are, and teach us what we needed to know to move forward. We didn’t learn to multiply before we learnt to add. We don’t reach the next step untill we’ve understood the last one. We must be grateful that we’ve had the chance to gain that understanding.

The Institute of Heartmath has actually monitored how the heart reacts to both frustration and gratitude. During frustration the heart rhythm is erratic and jumpy. During gratitude the heart rhythm is even and regular. What does that tell you? We need to focus on what is good in our lives.

Some of the findings from the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness included:

• Those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events.

• Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

• A daily gratitude practice with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy.

• In a 21-day gratitude process involving adults with neuromuscular disease, results included greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

• Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. They do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life. They tend to place less importance on material goods and are more likely to be generous.

Everything on our earthly plane is temporary. Acknowledge this, and be grateful for your gift of life and all the beauty and abundance within it now. Decide to see things to be grateful about and truly feel the gratefulness within you. You will then find your life change in wonderful and amazing ways.