Waking Up to the power of Gratitude!

Incorporating a daily practice of gratitude for all of our experiences doesn’t mean we are protected from ever experiencing pain or strife in our life, however it does seem to reduce the amount of time pain stays with us.

Pain shows up differently for each of us. Some people experience pain as blame, regret, shame, rejection, grief, depression, anxiety, or just not feeling good enough. However pain shows up…when we become it, it somehow takes hold and prohibits us from seeing any blessings in our life because we are seeing life through the lens of pain.

I am sharing this with you not because I have experienced more pain than you. I share it because through painful times in my life, I have been asked how do you do it? How do you show up and still have the courage to move forward and move past the pain? Here is my secret. I feel grateful for all of my experiences, and when I feel emotional pain instead of judging it, I welcome it. The more I befriend my pain, the more it seems to release and dissolve. I look at pain as another one of my teachers. During painful times I allow myself to feel the pain. When I am ready, I explore through the lens of gratitude, what lesson pain is teaching me.

Pain has been a profound teacher to me and is partly responsible for shaping me to become the woman that I am.

Adopting Gratitude as a daily practice may allow you to experience:

  • more love and less rejection
  • more understanding and less judgment
  • more of what is right and less of what is wrong
  • more of being in the flow and less resistance
  • more courage and less fear
  • more of loving what is and less of seeing what isn’t
  • more security and less anxiety
  • more inspiration and less depression
  • more of being present and less of letting life pass you by
  • more of being your authentic self and less of attempting to be what others want you to be
  • more including and less excluding
  • more resiliency and less feeling stuck
  • more physical health and less sickness
  • more balanced and loving relationships and less co-dependence
  • more optimism and less pessimism
  • more empathy and less aggression
  • more security and less self-doubt
  • more mental resiliency and less rigidity
  • more forgiveness and less blame

It is a perfect time of year to adopt a daily practice of gratitude for all of our experiences!