Gratitude and Thankfulness – The Formula for Happiness

Gratitude can sometimes be a tricky beast to corral. And yet, all the great thinkers and writers extol the power of gratitude and thankfulness for leading a better, more joyful life. In my mind, it’s very simple…

That to which you give energy, grows. So, do you want to grow lack and sadness or gratitude, abundance and peace in your life?

In other words, gratitude attracts abundance (just as abundance leads us to gratitude). Whether you’re grateful for the wonderful people in your life or the fact that you’ve been able to generate a good income for yourself and your family, being grateful will lead to more of either. On the other hand, negativity will attract doubt, despair, and distrust.

Giving thanks for all that we do have allows us to appreciate and recognize more fully all that we really do have. So often we tend to focus on what we lack. What we wish we had differently or more of. We compare and contrast not only our belongings but our experiences and worth to what others have, and even to other times in our own lives. Doing this will only bring misery and more lack. But if we focus on all that we do have, and all that we get to experience, and we express our gratitude for it all, we will find joy and peace and abundance there.

Being Grateful Can Save Your Life

Expressing gratitude, especially during a difficult and painful time when it seemed hardest to find anything to be grateful for, literally saved my paternal grandmother’s life. I am so grateful she chose to be grateful. My grandmother taught me many valuable lessons in life but this lesson in gratitude is among the greatest.

I have always thought it so wonderful that the simple expression of gratitude literally kept her alive through a very serious illness. If expressing gratitude for her blessings helped her survive through such a painful and difficult time – what might expressing gratitude every day, regardless of what we’re going through, do for us?

We have so much to be thankful for. Why would we ever think to complain or compare, thinking we don’t have enough, or that what we do have isn’t good enough?

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
– Melody Beattie

How to Be Grateful For Things That are Hard to Be Grateful For

Sometimes things happen in our lives that aren’t all that great. But when we develop a true attitude of gratitude we can truly be grateful for all things. Whether they appear to be great or not, we make them great because we are grateful for them. And when we are grateful for everything in our life, then everything in our life becomes something more to be grateful for.

Here are some examples in my own life:

• I am grateful that I am divorced. Not because my marriage fell apart but because I’m divorced I’ve been able to learn a lot about myself and some things that I can improve on in my relationships with others and especially with myself. I’m grateful for the relationships I have been able to develop with others who have also experienced divorce and what it’s like to be a single parent and am so grateful for all I get to share with and learn from them. And I’m grateful for all that I’ve discovered and learned about myself, and all the things I’ve realized I’m capable of doing and being that I never thought I could do and be.

• I am grateful I have scoliosis. Not because I have a crooked spine that causes me physical pain at times but because I have a crooked spine I have been able to meet some of the greatest massage therapists, yoga instructors and body healing workers that help me to help strengthen and even correct it a bit. And I am grateful that I have been able to love myself even with a crooked spine and be loved and accepted by others.

• I am grateful I sometimes struggle with my weight and not always being the most healthy. Not because I may at times be overweight and unhealthy but because of the times I am I can choose to learn how to eat and exercise properly and take care of myself physically and can experience a good healthy weight and lifestyle. I know the difference in how I feel and am grateful when I choose to maintain a healthier happier way.

• I am grateful I experience depression. Not because I like being depressed but because I have been depressed, I have learned to recognize when I am sinking into those dark and lonely, shameful places and I am open to getting help through therapy, as well as friends and nature and learning to apply and experience new ways of thinking, believing and being myself and living my life. I can choose to do things and think in ways that help to keep myself in a more happy joyful way because that feels better. It also allows me to be more understanding and empathetic with my children and others I know who experience depression and to be a support and strength to them through it.

• I am grateful I have wayward children that are struggling in life. Not because they are wayward and struggling to find their way in life but because they are, I am able to love and accept and support them in ways that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I am also able to love and accept myself and not feel guilty or blame myself as if their choices were something that I did wrong causing them to choose as they did and to be as they are. And I am able to trust that they are experiencing just what they need to experience in order to learn and grow from their own experiences in life just as I am mine.

I could go on with other examples but hopefully you get the idea here.

 “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns,
or rejoice because thorns have roses.”
– Alphonse Karr

Basically something that doesn’t seem so great can be turned great as we turn it into something to be grateful for. Often that is in looking at the lessons learned from experiencing such an experience. Other times it can be in experiencing the opposite and appreciating the difference between the two. By having experienced the one you didn’t like as much, you can be grateful for it because it helps you want to choose to stay with the better feeling option. And sometimes it can be in simply trusting that whatever happens no matter how bad it may seem, is for your growth and learning and for the growth and learning of those we love. And finally with everything that does happen there is always an opportunity to give and receive love. Being able to experience things that help us grow and learn in life and any opportunity to give and receive love…is indeed something to be grateful for!

“If we want to keep the blessings of life coming to us, we must learn to be grateful for whatever is given.”   —Harold Klemp

The more we are grateful for all things in life, the more we will get in life to be grateful for. That doesn’t always mean just getting more money, or a better job or house, or relationship, although those things definitely are things to be grateful for and I believe we will get more of them the more we are grateful for them. Does that mean then that the more we are grateful for hard things, the more hard things we’ll get? I don’t think it necessarily means that. Rather I believe that the more we are grateful for the lessons we learn and the love we give and receive through those hard things…that’s what we’ll get more of…more learning, more growth, and more love! Those sound like great things to be grateful for and get more of to me!

Thus being grateful for your experiences to learn and love will give you more experiences to learn and love. That’s just the way being grateful works! They may be hard experiences they may not but they will be the experiences that you alone need to experience in your life in order to provide you with the greatest opportunity to learn and to love and to be grateful for!

What challenges are you experiencing in life that you can be grateful for? What lessons are you learning and how are you giving and receiving love from them?

And please remember to submit the things you’re grateful for to help grow our Gratitude Garden.