Gratitude and Happiness

“The simple things in life can bring much joy if you look at them with a positive attitude,” according to John Marks Templeton. “You can get out of bed ready to make the day an adventure. Or you can drag yourself out of bed dreading the hours ahead….Your attitude help create your circumstances; they make you either a happy or an unhappy person.”

"Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.” There is ancient wisdom in this quote. A smile is contagious. As you smile, others around you will, too. It is an unconscious reaction. A smile is a gift we give to ourselves and others. And it is free! An optimist is a person who is grateful for the things life has given him and smiles often. The pessimist thinks he has no reason to smile. He has unconsciously chosen to ignore the many blessings God has given him. If he continues to ignore them, they will be taken away.

Research shows that the act of smiling triggers an unconscious response in the brain and you actually begin to feel better. When you choose to smile, you will find yourself reliving (unconsciously) all the times you had reasons to smile and how good it felt to smile. This helps you feel happier in the present moment.

Worry and despair cause the face to wrinkle and restrict the blood flow throughout the body. This causes illness. Tension can be a factor in ailments such as headache, arthritis, heart problems, digestive difficulties and even cancer. Why be sad, when you can be glad?

Most of us really don’t realize all of the good things we already have in our lives. We always want more or better. We can be learn to be grateful for what we do have or we can focus on the things we don’t have. Gratitude is a learned behavior. We can practice this concept and get better at it. When we do, our lives will change for the better.

“What we focus on expands.”

“Where your attention goes, your energy flows.”

We can be grateful for the things we have and be happy or we can focus on what we don’t have and be miserable. The law of gratitude and thanksgiving deals with energy flow. The energy (or vibrational rate) that you send out returns to you. Think of life as a boomerang--what you send out comes back to you.

”Ask and it shall be given you.”

Make a gratitude list each day. Just before going to bed write down everything you are grateful for that day. Writing down these blessings actually adds a power to it. Research has proven that writing down thoughts are more effective than just saying them. But thoughts have power, too. Every thought is actually a pray, so we must guard our thoughts carefully. Focusing on our good actually creates more good.

It is a law of life, that if we develop an attitude of gratitude our happiness will increase. Our reasons for being thankful will begin to multiply. Practice waking up each day expecting a miracle. They will begin to come! (I pray for a miracle to come each day. Often they do appear, small and large.) Then you really have something to be grateful for. Life becomes an adventure as you watch for these miracles each day.

There are five steps to practicing gratitude and happiness.
1) Search for the good each day. Recognize it and give thanks for it.
2) Give thanks ahead of time for whatever you want to happen in your life. Expect good things to happen and they will.
3) Give thanks for your problems. This seems difficult at first but it is truly effective. Problems are actually lessons that you should be learning from. Looking at problems this way make them so much easier to deal with.
4) Ask for a miracle every day. They will begin to flow in your life. Eventually you will begin to expect them.
5) Smile often!

Thoughts and feelings have creative power. Learn to use this to your advantage and your life will never be the same.