Nine Tips for Living Your Life with Gratitude

We often underestimate the healing power of being grateful for what you have, and all the blessings in your life that you might take for granted. Living your life with gratitude allows you to recognize and appreciate the amazing things in your life each day.  These basic habits will make it easy to live your life with gratitude!

1. Make it a habit to appreciate the basic things. Begin by being thankful for your body and its abilities, being able to see or hear.   Be grateful for  experiences you’ve  had and will have because of your ability to taste and enjoy food.  Express gratitude for the senses that allow you to appreciate beauty of color and form, to enjoy music and good stories.     Imagine if you awaken tomorrow with only the things you were thankful for today!
2. Experience nature. Get outside regularly to admire the wonders of nature.  Focus on the freedom of space.  Bask in sunshine when you can, but a cold winter day has its own beauty.  Feel the breeze, watch ducks on the water, or walk alongside a brook. Our previous home had a deck under a big tree and just stepping outside for five minutes was rejuvenating.
3. Choose optimism. Remember the old “is the glass half empty or is it half full” question?   Whatever is in the glass does not change, but our perception changes and that controls our thoughts and actions.  Hot outside?   Appreciate the shade tree in the yard, or the fan in the house.    Traffic not moving fast enough?  Think of the enforced slower speed as your guardian angel keeping you safe.  Be thankful you have a vehicle and money for gas.  You get to choose the positive in each situation.
4. Learn the lesson. Most of us face challenges of some sort or another. But there are lessons to be learned in every situation.  Can your experience help someone else?  Did you become more empathetic and understanding of the hardships others face?  Sometimes those challenges have incredibly unexpected silver linings.  Look for them.
5. Think bigger than yourself. Volunteer to help others, get involved in bringing justice to others, helping those experience hardships.  There are many places that need your expertise and/or muscles in the service of others. When you think about others and how you can help meet their needs, your appreciation of what you have will grow in ways you never imagined.
6. Replace negatives with positives.  We all experience worry, regret, resentment and self judgment.  When you find yourself caught up reliving negatives, make a conscious effort to stop that train.  Instead think through half a dozen things for which you are grateful in your life.  Picture each one in your mind for 10 or 15 seconds.  Science shows that doing this for 60 days can actually change our brain patterns and result in greater empathy and happiness.
7. Express your gratitude. Nurture relationships by expressing your appreciation.  Say thank you to the person who delivers your paper, fills your coffee cup, cleans your office, and others who serve you in some way.  Once a month or so, say thank you with a note or a phone call to someone who  shaped your life in some way.  A friend tells of the one very difficult exchange student who lived with them during their children’s school years. Years later, he called out of the blue to thank them for profoundly  impacting his life, and issued an invitation to visit his country as his guest.  Turned out he was governmental  Secretary of Something or Other and they were treated like dignitaries, the highlight of their long and interesting lives.  Both parties consider their lives enriched by a thank you expressed.
8. Challenge yourself  to find one new thing each day for which to be grateful.  A compliment from someone.  Hearing your favorite song.  A surprise text from a friend.  Finding the perfect nail polish shade.  A really good cup of tea.  Be specific too.  Instead of saying “I’m grateful for my husband”, note that he gave you a foot rub after a long day.
9. Put it in writing.  Jot items  down in a notebook or a journal so when you’ve had a really tough day, you can look back and be reminded of how good life really is.

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