So my life was not going as planned; let’s say. It became a shit show, and everything I did made it worse. My relationship with my wife was dimensioning rapidly, and I could not even think straight to work on anything, and the time with my kids, I was there but not present for them. My negative thoughts were taking over my life. No matter what I did, I would shift to those negative thoughts. I was losing control of my self. I was not happy, I was very very sad, and I did not know how to fix it or have the energy to do so. The stress that was receiving was than I could handle, and it was like it was compounding rather than subsiding.
So one day I remember my father had given me a book for my birthday. The name of the book was “The code of the extraordinary mind” by Vishen Lakhiani. So I started reading it, and one the chapter in the book is about being “blissipline”, the discipline of daily bliss. It is going into talking about why happiness matters and the power of gratitude. This started my journey with learning more about gratitude and why it matters.
Gratitude
The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
Why is it important to be grateful?
Being grateful is not about just being positive; it is about understanding what is there for you. You need to realize that there is more than what you are focusing on, what you are thinking about in your brain at that very moment is not as important as you make it out to be. More times than not, people focus just on the negative perspectives of life, and we get stuck there. We start to lose our focus on what is real in our lives and what is really significant.
I heard this saying by Tony Robbins that makes a lot of sense
“Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.” It may take a few times reading it to understand it, but once you know that point, it can change you.
We often find ourselves wondering why so many things have “just happened to me, why me.” Once you realize that it is part of the cycle and learn, there many other elements in your life that are going well, or there is a specific reason that you are going through that part right now.
When you are in a difficult situation, the mass amounts of uncertainty you are dealing with can derail the most prominent components, but once you are outside of that problem. Looking back, it seems insignificant.
Keeping your composure when you are in the belly of the beast, it can make your life direction go in the right place and keep your sanity. This is where gratitude comes in.
Learning gratitude is a daily practice and is a skill to be crafted, not something that happens. Gratitude should be a daily habit that you should exercise just like you would your body. It starts as a daily chore, but will eventually come to be some that you crave each day.
What to expect from practicing gratitude daily
When you start practicing gratitude on a day to day basis, your life will begin to open up in new ways. You will begin to shift your mindset to ideas and things that are pleasurable to you instead of things that stress you out. Your mind will be brighter, giving you a sense of well being.
Ways of exercising your gratitude habits.
Mindfulness
Practicing mindfulness helps us notice our experiences, our relationships, our environment in a different meaning.
Meditating
Gratitude meditation is one of the most critical and rewarding exercises you can experience. It helps you clear your mind focus just one thing. This helps put your life and your vision in line.
Writing your thoughts in a gratitude journal.
A gratitude journal is a great way to start practicing your ritual of gratitude. Making it something you do each day will change the way you live your life. By doing this, you will begin to focus on the decisive moments compared to thinking negative. Believe it or not, think negative is a learned skill. Assuming that you don’t have enough is a learned skill. Battling this could eventually change your outlook on what your life is meant to be about. Skills take practice, and writing in a gratitude journal is a great way to start to be aware of your thoughts. By doing this exercise, your belief system will expand to another way of doing things and stop you from being closed-minded, and the more you practice, the easier it will become something that you do for the rest of your life.