GRATITUDE PART 3

Benefits of gratitude.

Why should we bother to be grateful in life?

There are a number of reasons and benefits to be derived from an attitude of gratitude.

Key among them is the fact that gratitude changes your perception of your life’s circumstances. With a thankful attitude, you look at your circumstances challenging or otherwise from the perspective of a blessed one. Gratitude reframes your experiences by showing you the brighter side of all what has happened.

It also opens the door for more to flow into your life. Nobody wants to constantly give to someone who has no sense of appreciation for what is done for them. A little appreciation of what you have received motivates the giver to give more of what they have.

Appreciation fills you with a mindset of abundance. When you practice appreciation, your mind processes it as a sign that you are full and in need of nothing more. A mindset of abundance goes a long way in attracting more into your life according to the law of attraction.

Gratitude separates you from the masses. Many people look at what they have in their lives as a right and give it no thought. With a grateful heart, you belong to the minority who are wowed by the little things.

Gratitude unlocks the miraculous. This is closely linked to the second point. When you have shown gratitude for the small things consistently, then big things which you never thought possible begin to happen. 

Finally it unlocks the wholeness of the blessing. There is a story in the bible about Jesus healing ten people of leprosy. Of the ten only 1 come back to express gratitude when it was done. The story goes on to show that as a result of his gesture, Jesus tells him that he has been made whole. There is a big difference between being healed and being made whole. The nine lepers ended at healing. The one who took that extra step to go back and express gratitude went on to wholeness.

What else can you think of as a benefit of gratitude?

Gratitude by the Moment.

You need to get to a point in your life where gratitude becomes synonymous with breathing. Gratitude must become a lifestyle. It must become second nature to you to express gratitude. As a matter of fact, everywhere we look around us, there are beautiful things surrounding us. There is a lot of life and activity going on around us. We need to get to a point where we learn to acknowledge this things for their awesomeness.

When you start practicing gratitude by the moment, you become alive to the beauty of ordinary things. You learn not to take anything for granted but to deeply appreciate the being of things. You no longer need to set time aside at the end of every day to express gratitude because you have gone beyond that point. For you every moment of everyday is a time for gratitude. At this point, you savor every breath because it is as unique as the last one and the next one.

Gratitude by the moment does not need to be programmed. It flows from a heart that is full of God’s abundance. As you operate from a mindset of abundance there is much to be celebrated at every turn. You never worry that if you celebrate too much there will be nothing more to be celebrated. How can you run out of things to celebrate? As you read this, there are already a number of things you can celebrate. First it means you are alive and awake, secondly you have a device that allows you to read this content and an internet connection to access it. You have eyes that can see and a hand to hold your device in place. You understand English and can therefore grasp what I am going on about. You therefore realize that this is no mean feat. In this little activity of reading this content there is so much going on that you can be grateful for. What this tells you is that every other activity you are going to do today and going forward is full of opportunities for you to give thanks. You need to start practicing gratitude by the moment. Your life will be richer for it.

To help you build on this attitude, I encourage you to get a copy of my book, ‘Blessed to be a Blessing’ where I explore the different endowments bestowed upon us for which we ought to be grateful.

Perception and gratitude

I am sure you have heard this so many times that it is cliché to you. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty while the optimist sees it as half full. This has a lot to do with perception.

Elsewhere it has been said that we see things not as they are but as we are. The lens through which we look is more significant than what is before us. With the right lens, we see the novelty of ordinary things. With the wrong lens, even the extraordinary loses its shine in our eyes.

Perception has a lot of influence on whether we develop an attitude of gratitude or not. If we look at things from a perception of lack and what psychologists call ‘the gap’ we are more concerned with what is missing from the picture. With this mentality we have no room to express gratitude. We are looking for ways to fill ‘the gap’ in our minds. As such we think this would be perfect if it had a, b, c, d added to it. We therefore find ourselves withholding gratitude until our a, b, c, d’s are in place.

When our perception is one of abundance, then we appreciate what is before us for all its worth. We simply revel in the ordinariness of it all without waiting for something more. It doesn’t mean that we make no effort to make it better. If anything our appreciation of what is compels us to make it better. The difference is that we do not wait for the ideal to appreciate. The ideal, the perfect is an illusion we can keep chasing and never attain. If we therefore wait for perfection before we appreciate, our wait might be a long and arduous one-that I can guarantee.

If you want to build an attitude of gratitude, you should begin working on your perception.

Gratitude is the easiest way to appreciate God's Blessing upon your Life. practice it everyday. 

Let me know your thoughts on this week's series in the Comments section below.