I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.
Brene Brown
I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about gratitude lately.
Gratitude and compassion seem to be the words of the moment. Back in August, in fact, I blogged about how practicing gratitude regularly can really help you with worry.
The antidote to feeling fear and lack is feeling grateful for what you already have. Not the big things, the holidays, the car, the devices, but the small things. Feeling grateful for the simple things and the small moments is proven to give you a more positive outlook on life.
As someone who has studied worry, anxiety, positivity and happiness for years, there is absolutely no denying that a whole host of experts strongly recommend practicing gratitude for the simple things in life on a regular basis.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, research by Wong and Brown in 2017 showed that gratitude can help us with our worrying and negative thoughts in two particular ways:
Focusing on what we are grateful for disconnects us from negative emotions and the over-thinking that comes with worry
The process of writing down what we are grateful for is also a way of mindfully refocusing our attention on the positive rather than negative, in the same way another distraction like going for a walk or reading a book can.
Regular gratitude practice can also help retrain your brain to think more positive thoughts on a more regular basis - giving your brain the opportunity to lift itself into a more positive mindset generally.
This is powerfully effective stuff.
And yet.
Even though I know that regular gratitude practice will help me manage my worries and anxiety and I blogged about its importance a month ago, I still haven’t managed to build regular practice into my own life.
Isn’t it funny how as human beings we can know in our minds that something is going to make us feel better, and still struggle to find the motivation to do it? And I don’t think that’s just me. When I mention this to my close friends, they say the same.
I need to practice what I teach.
So I am committing, right here, right now, to seven days of gratitude practice. For the next seven days, starting today, I am going to be heading over to Instagram Stories to share three simple things that I’m feeling grateful for each day.
Have you been meaning to try a regular gratitude practice?
Will you join me?
A journey is always better shared and so if you’ve been meaning to try a regular gratitude practice why not join me for the next seven days and we’ll do it together!
Head over to Instagram and share your #storiesofgrateful once per day for the next seven days. Let’s practice gratitude together - I’d love to know how you get on and how it makes you feel after a week of committing to this practice.
#storiesofgrateful