An Attitude Of Gratitude

One of the fundamentals for decoding our own psychological Matrix in order to press onward and upward to success and fulfillment is Gratitude. This can be a hard concept to grasp when experiencing something overwhelming or when first trying to make a major change in your life. But it is a spritual axiom that energy produces more of its kind. In other words, positive thoughts create more positive thoughts. And negative thoughts, produce more negative thoughts. Furthermore, our thoughts actually manifest themselves in our reality.

So whether you are in a good or foul mood for any number of reasons, it is a great exercise to regularly make a list of the things you are grateful for. Doing so can strengthen an already positive frame, as well as provide the catalyst for turning a sour state of mind sweet.

Think about it. None of us are perfect. We all have days where something is really bothering us or something is going wrong. The way we react to those conditions is going to determine how we deal with them and move on. And different people react differently. But have you ever known someone who is just able to accept things for what they are and "see the bright side?" Those people don't stay in a negative state for very long do they? I know people who don't quite get there at all, or very rarely.

But sometimes, we are tempted to dwell in negativity. And my response to that, is to be grateful for the good that we see. A physical and mental exercise for honoring and appreciating what ever good we can find is a great step in the right direction. And a great exercise for maintaining wellness.

But gratitude isn't just about remembering the good. Real gratitude is being grateful for the bad. I know that might sound counter intuitive but the fact is that we all have challenges and demons. Adversity, bad luck, poor genetics, wrong place at the wrong time, loss, failure, all have their place in the world. And we all either already have, or will experience some form of something we don't want or feel we didn't deserve.

But our true personal power will come down to the ability to extract the value and the lesson from those circumstances. Then it can no longer own us. We then own it.

So I encourage you to start a gratitude list. Whether you write it every morning, add to it on occassion, read it daily, or save the exercise for a time when you really need a mental and/or spiritual uplift, it will prove to be a valuabe tool to help keep you on the right track.

Here's my list for today, right now:

I'm grateful for:
being able to hear the birds, my fully functional body, the pain and disappointments that I've gotten over, food, knowledge, my real friends, the times I've found out the hard way that someone wasn't my friend, that I can support myself, the roof over my head, my vison, my health, hard lessons, hard work, my intellect, all the opportunity I see, people who have passed hard lessons onto me, empathy, the kiwi I just ate, my bed, music, art, my trip to France, A/C, what I learned from getting robbed, hard jobs I've had, that I didn't fit in, my ability to stand on my own for what I know is right, my Life