This attitude displays a kind of hollowness – Hollowness like that of a flute, that allows air to pass through it, to create soulful music. Gratitude brings in each of us, this attitude of allowing the divine will to pass through us acknowledging that our limited perception may not be enough to anticipate what’s best for us.
On the other side of the table is a feeling of worry. Isn’t it an uncomfortable feeling that disallows us to enjoy all the beautiful things in our life?
When a millionaire, possesses all the worldly riches and owns the best of stuff- If all that he thinks of, when he goes to bed is, ‘How will I be able to protect all this wealth from being stolen? ‘, the whole intention behind amassing the wealth goes for a toss.
Doesn’t this mean that this millionaire chooses to look at the possibility of his wealth being stolen rather than thank the giver for the numerous resources he has been bestowed with?
Worry is an attitude of generating a ‘not so pleasing’ situation, in our minds & then diverting our energies into avoiding it.
So essentially, Worry is an attitude that pulls all these ‘unpleasant’ situations in our life because we choose to focus our energies on them.
It’s a feeling of acknowledging the negative or ‘not beautiful’ aspects or possibilities of our life & giving it a higher priority over the beautiful stuff.
Activities that help my Clients to use/ derive benefit of this power tool are as follows:
- Creating a culture of celebrating wins!!
The culture of Celebrating Wins, is an important activity that may not resemble Gratitude externally, but deeply, it does carry a feeling of acknowledging all the beautiful stuff that’s happening in one’s life
- Encouraging clients to write their gratitude list!!
Just pick up a pencil and paper & start thanking the giver for all the beautiful things happening in one’s life. If anyone needs help, I’d love to share my gratitude list that can be found here:
http://ibelivetoday.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/my-gratitude-list-a-must-have-for-everyone/
- Reframing perspectives or supporting clients to look at situations from multiple angles so that they can appreciate the stuff that they have rather than complaining about the stuff they’re lacking
- Supporting Clients in visualizing situations which they perceive might be helpful for them.
For ex: A person who is fed up of his job n wants to quit it, may not have thought through how different life would be if he didn’t have his job. Taking him through the jobless situation, might help him to appreciate the good stuff about his job.
- Following up with Clients, to observe the positive side effect that the attitude of Gratitude has.
Asking clients, any difference they felt over a time frame, say 3 to 4 weeks, after they regularly acknowledged the beautiful stuff that their life offers them & encouraging them to share the same with others they know J
- Encourage clients to think of people who make a positive impact on others around- thanks to the energy and positivity they carry.
Ask clients to find out from these positive/ energetic/ impactful personalities about what is it that enables them to function in such an awesome manner.
This power tool has helped me personally, & I find my life much more beautiful since the time I started counting my blessings. It works like a switch – One just has to start choosing to see what’s working rather than what’s not & along with that , be grateful for all that’s working.
I’ve realized, expressing gratitude is like a reiteration!! A redundancy of positive encounters!! It’s like a beautiful cycle – you thank ,you get,so you thank more, you get more, n so you again thank a lot more and you again get a lot more n so it goes on…
And I would want all my clients to benefit multiple times using this amazing power tool.