Gratitude – The Mindset that can change everything for you.

Gratitude,

The mindset of gratitude is one of the keys to a better, more fulfilling and healthy life. In this country we make it a tradition to take one day out of the year to be thankful. It is a great thing that we do this as a country. It very well could be one of the reasons we have such a great country. 

There are many benefits of being grateful. Studies on gratitude have been performed in the U.S., U.K. and Japan. One study found that a simple gratitude writing intervention such as writing a letter, was associated with significantly greater and lasting neural sensitivity to gratitude, subjects who participated in gratitude letter writing showed both behavioral increases in gratitude and significantly greater neural modulation by gratitude in the medial prefrontal cortex three months later¹. Gratitude also has an effect on our biology. Research has shown that being grateful increases our longevity, imagination and problem solving skills². Those that have experienced a life worth living – Ikigai – lived longer, healthier lives³.

There are certain laws of nature that are working around us every day.  We don’t think about them but they are always there. Just as the law of gravity is real and present so are others.  We take this for granted. We think the universe is out there and we are here.  That the universe does not care about us nor can we effect how the universe works, but this is not the case.  We live with the mindset or mental model that the universe is out there and indifferent to us. Sometimes things are going our way, other times the universe seems to be conspiring against us, but most of the time the universe does not care what our plans are.  I spent most of my life living in that universe. It took a lot of reading and discussion to realize there is a better way to live.  I prefer to live in a universe where the Universe actually is aware of my existence and is intertwined with who I am and how I live.  A Universe that wants to give me what I want and that I can Influence. 

I may not be able to prove to you that this works for me or any body else.  We each have to find it in ourselves and for ourselves.  No one can to do this for you.  Imagine for a second that you could choose what kind of universe you would like to live in.  You don’t have to imagine very hard. You just have to choose. If you choose to see and focus on all the negative outcomes, hardships, poor health and bad luck then that is what you will have more of.  When you lay down at night and your head hits the pillow, if all you can do is think about the “bad” stuff that happened to you that day and how much more “bad” stuff is waiting for you tomorrow, how well are you going to sleep? How do you think that tomorrow is going to go? 

Would it not be much more pleasant to take 3-5 minutes to be thankful for all the things that went right each day.  We all have stuff to be thankful for.  If you think this is hard, if you think you have nothing to be thankful for, think about this.  Can you be thankful that you have a bed to lie on, a roof over your head and that you were able to have dinner? Can you be thankful that you did not have to give much thought to these luxuries? For thousands of years and for millions of people a bed, a roof and dinner every night were luxuries. There are people right now that went to bed and have to think that they could be killed by an act of terror on their way to work in the morning. Do you have to think about where tomorrow’s dinner is coming from? I don’t know about you, but I am thankful that is not the part of the world that my family and I live in. 

Being grateful must be a part of our everyday lives. Here is an exercise to help you start or expand your practice of Gratitude. Every night before going to bed take 5 minutes to think about and be truly grateful for one or as many things as you can think of that happened to you that day.  Small and insignificant or great and meaningful, take a few minutes to be and feel grateful. Take another couple of minutes to write down the things you were grateful for that day.  Writing these things down makes a huge difference.  Do not take that part for granted. When your mind has to think of these things nightly in order to write them down, then your conscious and unconscious mind start to look for these moments and things to be grateful for throughout the day.  Once you start to notice that the things you are grateful for start to occur more often and they start to increase or appear in your dreams, make a note of that, write it down.  Be grateful.  Now ask yourself, could you be creating the universe around you? Could you be creating miracles in your own life?  

I keep a journal and a pen on my night table. Right before I lay down I jot down a few things that I can be thankful for that day, Then as I lay down to sleep I try to keep my thoughts on what I was grateful for that day and how the Universe is smiling down on me and how things just seem to go my way.  My sleep is better and definitely more restful.  I also try to remember my dreams and jot down anything I can remember the next morning, in that same journal.

I understand you may be skeptical.  You will have to try this for yourself. No one can do it for you or prove it to you. You owe it to yourself to at least try this for 7 – 21 days. If you do this for 21 days you will notice and increase in the things you have to be grateful for. You have nothing to lose and EVERYTHING to gain. This is one experiment or biohack you can trial that will cost you absolutely nothing, but could change the way you see the world around you. 

Imagine this for a minute, that inside of you are 2 hungry dogs.  One dog that is passive and tranquil and the other dog is unruly and prone to attacks when not fed often.  You only have so much food and time to give these dogs.  If you are like most of us, you will want to pacify and feed the unruly one.  That is how most of us live.  Which dog is going to grow stronger and demand more of your time? Instead of reading the news or inputting some other salacious content into your consciousness before you go to bed make a commitment and perform this exercise for the next 21 nights. You will notice how you can make changes in the Universe around you. 

As you keep up this practice, you will start to notice things occur that you may have called coincidences in the past begin to increase in your life.  Has it ever happened to you that you think of someone you had not thought of in a very long time, sometimes even years and within a few days you get a phone call from them or receive some news of them? 

The Laws of Nature are all around us. We can use these to our benefit. By changing our mindset to the laws we can use them to better ourselves and those around us. Experiment with this for the next 21 days. Come back and leave a comment on how things have changed for you. I know they will. By leaving your comments you will help others believe they can change the universe they live in. 

1 The effects of gratitude expression on neural activity

Prathik Kini, Joel Wong, Nicole Gabana, Joshua W.Brown

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.12.040

² The Psychology of Gratitude

Robert E Emmons, Michael McCullough

Oxford University Press 2004

³ Sense of Life Worth Living ( Ikigai )

Toshimasa Sone st al. Psychosomatic Medicine 70,  no 6, 2008