Why Gratitude? |

Hello beautiful readers, welcome back to my blog. It’s a new month and I hope this month fills you with things, people and experiences to be grateful about.

Lately, I got hooked on a question about gratitude? And if you follow me on Twitter you’ll notice I always tweet about gratitude, most of the time asking “what are you grateful for?”, and one day the question came up, “why gratitude?”

At that moment, I froze because I didn’t have the answer to that question. Although I understood what it meant to me and what being grateful or practising gratitude has done for me, I was stuck. And I needed to answer it before I continue tweeting & talking about it. So why gratitude?

First, before we get to that, what is gratitude? Gratitude is an act of being thankful or showing appreciation. Also, the appreciation of what is valuable to you, and being in the state of thankfulness.

I realized that being thankful or grateful is less confusing when you show gratitude to someone for the kindness being expressed to you or when religious people say thank you to God. (That was what I grew up believing, saying thank you to God or to my parents).

So when I became agnostic and not identified with any religion it was different and I needed to understand why gratitude especially when I am not saying or expressing it to a God(s).

Eventually, it became more clear, I listened to a lot of people talk about gratitude, people like Sadhguru, Jim Kwik, Jay Shetty, etc. And the change I noticed was, being grateful transformed me from always feeling like I lacked something or I didn’t have enough to recognizing I had what I needed–The little things in my life started to count.

As humans, A lot of things contribute to keeping us alive on this earth from the trees (plants), the sun, the moon, rain (water) etc all play parts in our existence and keeping us here.

For example, even when it comes to the food we eat, the farmers, the bakers, the cooks etc without these people and the roles they play, this foods we love to eat so much will not be available to us. And recognizing this is one way we show gratitude.

So why gratitude?

One thing I experienced was gratitude puts us in a state of joy and abundance.

People who practice gratitude are more likely to take care of their health and well-being by not taking it for granted.

Gratitude helps reduce unhealthy emotions, like anger, envy/Jealousy, stress, regret, frustration etc.

Practising gratitude helps build resilience–no matter what challenges we face we are able to look at the “good”.

Practising gratitude helps build self-esteem reducing situations where you compare yourself to others because you recognize everything amazing in your life.

Practising gratitude helps when dealing with depression.

Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
-Zig Ziglar

How do you practice gratitude?

Practising gratitude is as simple as recognizing the things in your life that money cannot buy. Also, at the start and the end of your day, writing out (especially, if you own a journal) three things you are grateful for.

Finally, based on my experience, being grateful helps me deal with the worries and anxiety that might come with unexpected life situations.
And because I believe in the law of attraction, I am conscious about what I let into my universe. Because if you focus on lack you keep attracting situations that make you feel like don’t have enough, but being in the state of gratitude–recognizing the things you have opens you up to more things to be grateful about.

Do you practice gratitude and what benefits have you gotten?

Share your thoughts in the comments section.