Your Daily Brush: Cultivating a Grateful Heart
An ongoing gratitude practice is a powerful way to brush your mind and boost your emotional health, especially in the face of life's challenges.
In the United States, the last Thursday of November is dedicated to Thanksgiving, a national holiday to give thanks for what is good on one’s life.
But the fact is that gratitude is such a powerful force for emotional health, it deserves to be a part of everyone’s daily brush - and not just relegated to one holiday in one country. Regardless of nationality, religion and culture, a regular practice of gratitude is sure to benefit just about everyone.
You can think of the practice of Gratitude as Vitamin G - an essential vitamin for your emotional health and well-being. The benefits of an ongoing gratitude practice include a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression and more positive mood, all of which translate into overall better mental health.
When things don’t go as we would like them to, it is easy so see what is not going right. And even if we notice what is going right in our lives, it is easy to forget to take inventory of people and things to be grateful for when life gets hectic.
The regular practice of gratitude is something within the reach of everyone be they believers in God or a Higher Power, atheists or agnostics. The end result is that it benefits you no matter what you believe.
Rx: To support you in going from knowing to doing, I invite you take pen and paper and write down your answers to the following questions:
Who are you grateful for?
What are you grateful for?
Who might be people you will never meet but for whom you can be grateful for - such as those who grow and harvest our food? Or those who protect the public - such as firefighters?
What is going right in your life, even if your life if not perfect?
Which parts of your imperfect life might someone else in difficult circumstances view as a blessing that you have?
What are your non-monetary riches? What are you blessed with that money cannot buy?
What additional reflection questions might you to add to this list of gratitude prompts?
