This is one I got thinking about today. It’s so often said that a gratitude practice can do wonders for your mental health and for the things that show up in the world.
“the world is full of miracles but we see them as ordinary things” is a Hans Christian Anderson quote. I’ve often said it to people ~ we see things on holiday and we take pictures of all the things. All the things catch our attention, attract comment and promote us to take a photograph of them often. In our day to day we see the same things all of the time but that doesn’t provoke the same awe and interest, perhaps we take them for granted.
Perhaps it’s not until we can’t have or see or do something do we realise it’s awesomeness, it’s significance, it’s downright epicness in our world. I remember that one of the most profound experiences I had was to have a bath. Yup, that’s not a typo – A BATH. I’d been in Intensive Care for a week and transferred to the High Dependancy Unit in hospital. It was the 7th November. It was the day of the New York Marathon. Fireworks displays had lit up the sky the night before. There was enough nurses on shift for me to have a bath! It would take 2 people available at the same time to give me their undivided attention and it happened that day. After going from 20th October to 7th November with only bed baths I got a bath. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO GRATEFUL for the time those nurses took that day. It would have been easier to bed bath once again. I had tubes, I couldn’t walk, I need full on support.
During this period gratitude and positivity helped me get better.
✔️ Gratitude can change your view point.
✔️ Gratitude can change your focus
✔️ Gratitude can create appreciation
✔️ Gratitude can alter your outlook
✔️ Gratitude gives you the opportunity to look at the has rather than the has not
Gratitude doesn’t fix everything. Gratitude isn’t a solo tool to create cataclysmic change BUT gratitude absolutely is a positive.
Getting into the habit of;
➡️ Noticing the awesome around you
➡️ Appreciating the everyday things we take for granted
➡️ Giving ourselves an opportunity to smile a wee bit
Focusing on the good rather than the not so good (or brain is wired to be more astute with the negatives rather than the positives)
Spreading a wee bit of gratitude and appreciation in our words & actions
^^^^ that shit can make us feel good and make others feel good too!
So it gratitude over-rated?? NO!!
