Posts tagged with “grateful”
How Gratitude and Mindfulness Gave Me My Life Back
“Train your mind and heart to see the good in everything. There is always something to be grateful for.” ~Unknown
I used to rush through life, constantly ticking off to-dos, feeling like I was always chasing something just beyond my reach. My days were a blur of deadlines, errands, and commitments. And yet, in the quiet moments—when I finally lay my head on the pillow at night—there was this heaviness, this emptiness I couldn’t shake.
I kept telling myself that once I finished the next big project, once I achieved the next goal, I’d feel better. But that “better” feeling …
How Replacing Worry with Gratitude Turned My Whole Life Around
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” ~Willie Nelson
You know you’re not living the life of your dreams when you’re doing mundane things like brushing your teeth, doing laundry, getting dressed, or preparing a meal, and your constant thoughts are “Oh, we need more toothpaste or laundry detergent, but we can’t get either right now. Money’s too tight.” Or “We should get more milk and lettuce, but we have to put that money toward our utility bill so our lights don’t get turned off.”
This train of thought started to be the norm for me …
Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain
“It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.” ~Stephen Colbert
Life is not a war; you do not conquer it, nor do you overcome it. You simply accept that suffering is an inevitable and necessary rite of passage on our paths throughout life.
No one is immune to pain; it is only dished out at different levels, and our own internal experience is incomparable. We share similar human experiences—that is the tie that binds us all together—but …
How I Changed My Perspective When I Was Too Angry to Be Grateful
This is not your usual piece about gratitude.
I am sure you’re familiar with all the benefits of having a regular gratitude practice.
Chances are you, as a reader of this blog, have a gratitude routine of yours. I was one of you. I have been regularly gratitude journaling for over a year now. I have experienced all the promised benefits of it myself.
Gratitude journaling has helped me reduce my stress, get better sleep, and feel more energized. It improved my mental well-being so much that I even started a social media page to encourage others to practice gratitude.…
Growing Old Gratefully: How to See Each Year as a Gift
Growing old gratefully. Yes, you read that right. Gratefully. Why on earth would I be grateful for getting older, less youthful, and more wrinkly with every passing year?? I hear you cry. Let me tell you why I’m trying hard to do just that.
One bright Saturday afternoon some years back, while chatting with my uncle, he reminded me that my fortieth birthday was fast approaching. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes, Uncle, thanks for the reminder.”
He looked at me for a minute and then said, “You know, you should be grateful for every year of life you …
How I Started Appreciating My Life Instead of Wanting to End It
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” ~Willie Nelson
Few things have the power to totally transform one’s life as gratitude. Gratitude is the wellspring of happiness and the foundation of love. It is also the anchor of true faith and genuine humility. Without gratitude, the toxic stew of bitterness, jealousy, and regret boils over inside each of us.
I would know. As a teenager and as a young man, I lived life without gratitude and experienced the terrible pain of doing so.
Outwardly, I appeared to be a friendly, happy, and gracious person. I …
5 Ways to Start Valuing Your Time and Making the Most of It
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Oh, how I loved sleeping when I was a teenager. I would sleep for twelve hours, just as babies do.
And guess what else?
Another favorite activity of mine was taking selfies until I finally had a perfect one, editing it, posting it on social media, and waiting for likes. And scrolling through the feed.
Wow. So unusual nowadays.
I didn’t care what I was doing with my life. I chose a university degree just for fun and …
How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Starting Right Where You Are
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~Rumi
“Isn’t this a miracle?” I asked myself in the milk aisle at Whole Foods.
It was a Wednesday night after work, and I was buying a few staples to get us through the week. It was a completely ordinary moment in a completely ordinary day, and it was miraculous.
Rewind a few years, same Whole Foods, same shopping list, and you’d find me absentmindedly wandering the aisles, lost in a head full of worries. I couldn’t tell you …
How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It
One day a man met a hungry tiger. He ran. The tiger chased him. Coming to a cliff, he jumped, catching hold of a tree root to stop himself falling to the bottom where, horror upon horror, another tiger waited to eat him.
He hung on for dear life to that thin root.
Then a little mouse appeared and started to nibble at the root. The mouse was hungry and the fibers started to snap.
Just then, the man saw a ripe red strawberry near him, growing from the cliff face. Holding the vine with one hand, he picked the
I Am a Survivor, Not a Victim, and I’m Grateful for My Pain
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.
“Emotional pain cannot kill you but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let your yourself heal.” ~Vironika Tugaleva
I was nine years old, sitting on the couch with my dad, watching a Very Brady Christmas (on my sister’s birthday, December 20th) when he first molested me. Terror, confusion, disbelief, and shame comingled to create a cocktail that would poison me for many years to come.
We grew up in a family that, from the outside, seemed …
What Helps Me When I Feel Down About My Chronic Illness
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.
A few months back, before the pandemic upended life for all of us, I went through one of those times when I could do nothing but sit at home and rest for my health’s sake.
I’d recently had another one of my surgeries; I was born with a genetic condition called vascular malformation, which grew and spread quite rapidly on my left cheek and into the mouth during my childhood. It’s the reason I’ve been paying visits to operation theaters for all …
Radical Gratitude: How to Turn Your Pain into Peace
My journey to living in gratitude began in 2010. And let me say that up until that time, until I was age forty-five, I was a complainer, griper, and a whiner, with absolutely no reason to complain!
Luckily, I was saved from these very wasteful, counter-productive habits when I was given a blank journal one Thanksgiving season by a New Thought minister, who told us if we journaled five things we were grateful for forty days, our life would change exponentially for the better.
I dutifully wrote my gratitude lists, and oh my god, my life did change. It …
Why I’m Grateful for Accidents, Pain, and Loss
“If you have nothing to be grateful for, check your pulse.” ~Unknown
I couldn’t feel my legs.
There wasn’t any pain, just this odd “sameness” of non-sensation.
My body was frozen as I turned my eyes downward to scan down my nineteen-year-old body. Below my knees, my legs were splayed out in a very peculiar way. I was halfway underneath my car, pinned down to the dirt and gravel of the road by the back right tire.
The tire had caught my long, curly hair and the puffy left sleeve of my new white peasant blouse, miraculously missing my face.…
Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More
“It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” ~Unknown
I used to be a complainer, a fault-finder, a grumbler. I would grumble a hundred times a day about mundane issues, be it the weather, the traffic, or my husband.
I complained when my husband didn’t help me around the house, and grumbled when he helped. It took me some time to realize that it was not him or his lack of housekeeping skills that made me unhappy. I was unhappy because I was turning into an ungrateful person.
I have some fond and …
How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun
“Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be genuine. But most of all, be thankful.” ~Unknown
Have you ever tried to keep a daily journal?
How long did you last?
I’ve tried to keep one many times in my life, and I have failed every time. The longest I’ve ever kept a journal was for a measly two weeks, in a Google Doc, with my college roommates as a way to keep in touch, before I got bored and stopped.
For the last four months, though, I’ve managed to write in my journal every day. The trick, for me, has been to keep …
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