Gratitude is feeling thankful. It is an emotion of connectedness, which reminds us we are part of a larger universe with all living things. The habit of gratitude can greatly help with feelings of inner peace, increase mindfulness, and attract more good into our lives. Whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will increase in your life.

Gratitude is a recognition that there’s goodness in our lives, gifts or benefits that we enjoy. This goodness is often due to the actions of another person or a situation/experience we’ve come across.

How can Gratitude help us?

• • Gratefulness increases happiness and life satisfaction.
• • Grateful people are more resilient to stress.
• • Grateful people get along better with others.
• • Grateful people are less depressed and more hopeful
• • Grateful people achieve more.
• • Grateful people are more helpful and generous.

Gratitude connects us to the present moment.

Gratitude uplifts our spirits and feeds our hearts.

Gratitude opens the heart and activates positive emotion centers in the brain. Regular practice of gratitude can change the way our brain neurons fire into more positive automatic patterns.

Gratitude can help during times of stress or panic- thinking of all the hard times you have already overcome and all the good you already have in your life can be reassuring.

Expressing gratitude is as important as internally feeling it. What better way to show someone you appreciate them than by saying ‘Thank You’ for something that they did. Or just saying ‘I appreciate you’. It’s a shot of a happy hormone. Saying Thank You not only benefits the person receiving it but also the person who is saying it. It is a vibration in your throat chakra. Words have energy and vibrations. If we say ‘Thank You’ or I Appreciate you’ the energy is soft and uplifting. It raises our own internal vibration.

Gratitude has a direct effect on our heart chakra as well. Remember the Grinch (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)? At the end of the film he was filled with gratitude. His heart space was so big. It changed who he was. Gratitude can be life changing.

Try this exercise:

Think about something in your life you are very grateful for, think about where you can feel that in your body.

Then just give gratitude the chance to come up naturally. And when it comes up just let yourself sink into the feeling, surrender to it. Notice how it feels in your body, how your energy feels. And if it doesn’t come up that’s ok, you don’t need to try to make yourself feel it. Just surrender to your heart not your head.

Bring your awareness to your breath, as you inhale and as you exhale and the fact that each of these breaths gives you life.

Then, be aware of your heart beating, pulsing, filling with love and compassion and peace, and flowing that back out.

Drift your awareness to nurturing relationships in your life, the new ones and the older ones.

Think of love in your life, and your connection to those things that are sweet, and loving and honorable, and just feel right.

When we no longer take life for granted, we become grateful for everything that we have.

Just breathe and feel this flow.

“I am grateful for everything in my life”

If you want to come out of a bad space, if you are drained or depleted, if you have been around someone who upset you, then you can quickly change your energy by looking at the good things you have and saying thanks — thank you self, thank you Universe. This is an effective way of purifying your aura and raising your vibration. If you were to wake up each morning and spend two minutes giving thanks, you would find yourself having a much higher day.

I am grateful for each and every one of you that has joined my community. To you I say 'Thank you".