Being Grateful

If you were asked to describe how you begin your day, are your mornings filled with rushing around, dragging kids out of bed, fumbling to find your shoes, dreading the bus ride to the city and complaining about going to a job you do not like? For most women, the mornings are not filled with an hour of meditation, some time for reading, a quiet breakfast with the family discussing their plans for the day. Yet how we set up our day in the morning will most likely be responsible for how our day progresses.

Although we would love to start our days with peace and quiet, and a cup of coffee while we sit by the fireplace; limited time robs us of the opportunity to do this. But what if there was a way to bring a positive spin into the early morning that would last through the day? While you brush your teeth, or feed the dog, or ride on the bus, or walk into the office – give thanks.

Give thanks for the house you live in, the family that surrounds you, the people on the bus who smile at you, the change in your purse, the clothes you wear, the job you have. Give thanks for your health, your dog, the food on the table. Thanks for your relatives, friend and co-workers.

Now it may seem improbable to be grateful when kids are sick, you missed the bus, the boss is angry, and you’re in a rut. Yet it seems almost impossible to be thankful when there is no money in the bank, the mortgage is overdue and you were passed over for that raise. Worries about family, work and money steal your days and take away the ability to enjoy life. Living becomes existing.

But even at these most despairing moments, you need to reach beyond the “liabilities” to find those things to add to the “asset” side of your life’s ledger.

By starting your day in this spirit, you set up your day to be prosperous and satisfying. If you start the day feeling stressed and lacking, you will have a day of stress and lack. But if you take an inventory in your mind of your life’s assets, you will realize just what a rich woman you really are. You will see that you have much to be grateful for and that you are probably taking for granted the abundance that already exists in your life. The world around you will give you more if you appreciate what you already have. If you sow seeds of lack, you will reap lack. But if you sow seeds of abundance you will reap more of the same.

Melody Beattie wrote in the Language of Letting Go, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.”

Begin each day with gratitude; because if you do this every day for a month, you will simply not be the same person you are today. By giving thanks each day for the abundance you already have in your life, you will set in motion an ancient spiritual law that says, the more you have and are grateful for, the more you will receive. Set up your day by being grateful for what you have; and for what the day will bring. See in your mind the kind of day you would like to have; and then be grateful that you are having it.