The Power of Gratitude
I’m curious, can you remember how young you were when your parents or someone you know, told you to say thank you when someone did something for you? Have you ever stopped for a second to reflect on what thank you really means?
I came across this exerciser while watching Tony Robbins’ Emotional Flood1 segment on Oprah’s Lifeclass. In this exercise he allows you to visualize a moment in time when something great happened to you that created joy and gratitude in you; something so simple yet so powerful. With that, I decided to implement this practice in my everyday life by starting my very own gratitude journal.
At the end of my day I will take 5 to 10minutes of quiet time to reflect on what good things happened for me that day. I start every page of my journal with “What are 5 things that I am grateful for, today?” And I just let the pen do the work. It’s pretty impressive when you take a minute and realize the little random acts of kindness you come across during a 24hour period.
While doing this exercise after a week, even less, a couple of days, I started noticing shifts in myself. My perception to things started changing, I started being happier, and I was becoming more relaxed. My decision making and actions became smoother and easier. The more grateful I was, the more good I was noticing around me.
Feeling this great, I decided to try and understand what was happening in my body and mind; here is what I discovered.
Because I was writing about these acts of kindness, I was no longer seeing bad things. My mind perception was searching for positivity as my goal was to write about them at the end of my day. Here are some examples of these acts; someone holding the door for me when entering a building or telling me that I’ve dropped something. My brain was noticing the good; I didn’t have time to focus on the bad.
As this was happening subconsciously, my brain focusing on the positive, I wanted to give more. Seeing people do good is like a virus, it spreads. Look at it this way, when someone smiles at you, what do you do? You most likely smile back. Then smile at someone else and what do they do? They smile at you. That’s what I was doing, spreading the love virus without realizing it.
If everyone knows the law of attraction, it states that the more you put out the more you’ll receive, that is what was happening. I kept receiving and I kept wanting to give, but why was I more relaxed? Why was I able to make clearer decisions? What was that about? My understanding is that I was in the flow.
Being positive allowed me to not notice the negative; it allowed me to not be stressed or angry because I didn’t have time to think about it. When situation arose I became more passive, I would see the challenges but it wasn’t the end of the world. I became accepting of it and was able to deal with it better. I was flowing with it.
This is where the clarity came from; I was no longer in a negative fog or resistant. I was open to what I would be faced with, focusing on the good of why it was there and was able to make better decision based on what I was trying to accomplish.
But why is it that the more grateful you are the more will come to you? As mentioned above, because I was not overwhelmed with negative fog, I was clearer at making decisions and choices. My solutions came to me faster and I was able to move on to the next challenge quicker. With that, I was able to accomplish more. That to me, is what it means: you are more positive, you have clearer perspective, you make better decision, you solve things quicker, and more comes to you. You are not blocking the flow of getting to where you want to go.
So there, that is what I discovered about the power of gratitude. If you’ve experienced gratitude as well, we would love to hear from you. Please add your thoughts in the comments below. Let’s share and spread the love virus! I hope this was as much value to you as it was for me.
Join me in shifting our perception and let’s start or continue our gratitude journal.
Until next time,
Annie Gélinas-Olive, PC
Life & Career Goal Setting Specialist in Transition Coaching
“Helping people transition with ease.”