What Could You Be Grateful For?  

Doing Emotional Gratitude
Author - Chris Anderon
We can all have those moments when we know something we're genuinely grateful for. And all too often, when a situation challenges us to become overwhelmed. And when life seems good and not so bad, those moments of appreciation become dependent on when something good has to happen to feel good. So often, when you are not being challenged, not doing pain, dismiss the practice of doing gratitude with a quick, "Of course I do," without allowing yourself to experience its life-changing effects. And where it becomes possible with practice to create more of those amazing experiences of emotional gratitude and take it to a whole new level.

Expressing gratitude means acknowledging and appreciating the things in your life that have meaning or value to you. Simply taking a moment every day to recognize and give thanks for what you're grateful for can help brighten your outlook, improve your mood, and enable you to maintain a positive mindset even when faced with challenges.

It can be surprisingly tricky to show gratitude sometimes, regardless of your circumstances in life, consistently. Many of us fall prey to a negativity bias, where we tend to habituate on some long list of what we should be grateful for when asked or on some lousy news and unpleasant experiences while allowing positive moments to fade into the background.

Maybe you spend so much time dreading another day, starting back to work on a Monday, that you fail to appreciate the weekend fully. Or perhaps you are so preoccupied with mistakes that you do not notice a compliment from a friend. If you are struggling with a mood disorder such as depression, being able to find any positives or express gratitude can seem unachievable.

Getting caught up in pain and feelings of ingratitude for what you're not grateful for is easy. But what if we viewed life's challenges and pains as opportunities for growth? When our sense of normality gets disrupted, it can prompt us to question other aspects of our lives and consider redefining ourselves and our purpose. Perhaps this can lead us to reconnect with the dreams we had as children or pursue things that bring us joy and passion. Life is full of opportunities, and it's up to us to make the most of them.

Developing gratitude is not too dissimilar to building a muscle. You can learn to appreciate even the most minor things on your most challenging days by practising the right exercises. Cultivating gratitude may seem cliche, but scientific studies have proven it can have genuine benefits. Following these tips, you can utilize appreciation to improve your mood, counteract negativity, build stronger relationships, and transform your self-perception. 

Acknowledging gratitude can lead to the release of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, which are associated with happiness and pleasure. This type of thinking also helps reduce stress hormones, resulting in a decrease in anxiety and an improvement in mood in the short term. Additionally, regularly practising gratitude can lead to lasting changes in your brain, which can prime you to be more grateful in the future.


Activity practice Emotional Gratitude. 

Practising gratitude can help us achieve a state of mind where anxiety, stress, and fear cannot exist. This state of mind is known as "Flow" and is considered the optimal human experience. During this state, an individual is fully engaged in an activity, focusing solely on it. Furthermore, being in a state of Flow can trigger a feeling of happiness. However, there is a catch. If you want to experience genuine joy and gratitude, you must make an effort to make it happen. If you commit yourself to this effort, you will find it easy to change your emotions and reach a state of true happiness. Practising daily gratitude can make changing your feelings and being happy easier, especially by thinking about things you can be grateful for that are coming into your life.


If you were to begin to Focus on all the value other people, inventions and things that exist today that you get to use, experience or own, which came into existence without any effort on your part.


Here's a Sample List of Ideas to Start you Off

 Consider the following:
- Our clothes provide warmth in winter and coolness in summer.
- Our homes that shield us from the elements and keep us dry.
- The beds we sleep in that are designed to give us a restful night's sleep.
- The food we eat that undergoes a complex process from cultivation to being served on our tables.
- The transportation we use to move around effortlessly.
- The medical innovations that keep us healthy and allow us to live longer.
- The computer and smartphone result from thousands of smaller inventions and countless hours of hard work.
- The Internet that has revolutionized the way we communicate and access information.
- Instant messaging and video calling have become indispensable in our daily lives.
- Online learning that provides us with access to education from the comfort of our homes.



Warning!
Cuteness Overload.


If you're a pet owner, begin to notice those feelings of connectedness, a sense of appreciation for trust, and that bond that gives your pet and your life meaning when taking care of that life and the sustaining love and energy to each other. And that can mean so much more as you begin to think of it.

And notice when you think about it, perhaps a stranger, when passing each other in the street, acknowledged your presence, smiled at you, had you feeling really good and maybe seeing someone showing kindness to another.


As a life coach, I help others navigate through life's challenges. However, it doesn't mean I am immune to experiencing difficulties myself. I can easily be negative during those challenging times and become ungrateful. In such moments, I remind myself of all the amazing things, people, and support I have received in the past, which have uplifted me and helped me move forward. Practising daily emotional gratitude, I can quickly move out of darkness and pain to feeling uplifted, happier, and more enriched.


As you go about your day, make an effort to actively practice gratitude in the morning and reflect on it throughout the day. Pay attention to the countless ways your life has been made better due to the talents and efforts of others and maybe those people, a teacher when you had doubts said something that had you feeling more confident. By doing so, you will begin to notice and appreciate the blessings in your life.

When you begin to notice some invention, a person, an idea that makes your life better in some way or trying to; feel that sense of gratitude. There's no set time when you have to be all monkish about it. It's whenever you're going about some daily task, having a coffee relaxing or taking a walk.

By giving your attention to focusing it now and then during the day on what you are or could be grateful for will be enough to get a flow state of emotional gratitude flowing.

Appreciate it And Give it Thanks


By practising these forms of gratitude every day, your life will feel lighter and truly blessed. No matter how much is in your bank account.

You'll be feeling more content.

You'll marvel at the world you get to live in, and maybe even begin to experience a sense of awe.

When focusing on what you could be grateful for what's coming into your life, you begin to harness the powerful, abundant, and generous energy of the Universe and start to attract amazing things into your life. This is known as the Law of Attraction.

To your success,