Gratitude – The Key To A Happier More Fulfilling Life

“Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seeker’s life – in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes.” (Sri Chinmoy)

What is the difference between somebody who is full of joy, has a zest for life, and always seems to have a smile on their face, and somebody who is grumpy, grouchy, and a total drain to be around?

Is it the amount of money they have?

Is it simply their personality?

Is it the circumstances they’re going through?

Nope, not really.

While all those things certainly can play a role in the amount of joy a person experiences, they’re not the primary factor.

The primary factor is gratitude.

Gratitude has the power to change any situation.

Actually, a better way of putting it is that gratitude has the power to change the way we experience any situation.

Being grateful probably won’t change your circumstances, but it does change you, and that makes all the difference.

Sonja Lyubomirsky put it beautifully when she said: “Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present-oriented.“

This is the power of thankfulness – it has the power to change the very way we experience life.

It can neutralize negative emotions and enable us to learn incredibly valuable lessons – even in the midst of challenging circumstances.

Thankfulness has the potential to transform both your mental and physical health. It can also transform your spirituality and help you attract good things into your life.

With thankfulness comes great power. And the more you cultivate gratitude, the more power you’ll experience in your life.

In this guide, I’m going to walk step-by-step through gratefulness, talking about:

• what it is
• why it’s so powerful
• and how you can begin to cultivate it in your life.

If you implement what you learn here, you’ll be overflowing with gratefulness and joy each day.

Ready to get started?

Let’s dive in.

What Is Gratefulness?

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” (Melody Beattie)

Before I get into the details of the power of gratitude and how to be grateful, let’s take a step back and ensure we’re on the same page regarding exactly what gratitude is.

After all, when was the last time you thought long and hard about the nature of thankfulness?

If you’re like most people, probably not recently.

But if we want to grow in gratefulness, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what it is and how it works.

So, what exactly is gratitude?

Gratitude Is A Way Of Living

First and foremost, gratitude is a way of living – it is a state of being in which you open yourself up to receive good things.

It is a posture of openness, receptiveness, and willingness to receive abundance.

And when you do receive those very good things, you instinctively and consistently give thanks.

In other words, gratitude is not a one-time event where you simply say, “Thank you.”

It’s an entire way of being in which you joyfully receive good things and give thanks for those good things.

The great author and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way: “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.“

So, gratitude is a habit. It’s a perpetual way of life, almost like breathing – you take in something good and breathe out gratitude:

• Receive
• Be grateful
• Receive
• Be grateful

It’s a beautiful cycle and a powerful way to live.

Additionally, gratitude encompasses all things. As Emerson said, “All things have contributed to your advancement.”

There are valuable things for us to learn in everything that happens to us, and these valuable things help us advance in life, but primarily in character.

Because all things contribute to our advancement, we must live a life of gratefulness for all things that come our way.

A Recognition Of Receiving

Gratitude comes from the recognition that you have received something good. In other words, you didn’t create this thing yourself.

Rather, it came from outside of you. From a friend, or maybe even a complete stranger.

Because you received something from outside of yourself, it means that you didn’t make it.

It’s not like you built something through your blood, sweat, and tears. Rather, somebody gave something valuable to you.

Gratitude is distinctly different to earning something – when we work hard to create something, we can say that we earned it.

Gratitude, on the other hand, comes when we receive something that we have not earned.

Gratitude occurs in response to gifts.

In order to be grateful, you must regularly recognize when you have been given good things. You must cultivate the ability to look around and see when good has been done to you or given to you.

Gratitude springs forth when we recognize that we have received something.

Consider this definition of gratitude from Harvard Medical School: “…a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives … As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals – whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.“

Notice how gratitude connects you to something larger than yourself. This is one of the great powers of gratitude. It takes us outside of ourselves and connects us to other people, nature, and even a higher power if you believe in that.

Gratitude Is An Affirmation Of Goodness

Finally, gratitude is an affirmation of goodness. In other words, it’s recognizing that not only have we received something freely, but that thing we received is also very good.

And as a result, we are grateful.

It’s important to regularly be grateful for and affirm the goodness that flows into our lives.

When we focus and affirm goodness, it takes our focus off the things that we don’t like about our lives.

Gratefulness is like a magnifying glass that highlights the good in our lives and minimizes the things that we’re unhappy about.

Gratefulness enables us to see just how many good things we have in our lives. On the flip side, when we’re not regularly grateful, we become discontent and unhappy with the way things are going.

Gratefulness and contentment go hand-in-hand, which is one of the reasons it’s so powerful.

The Opposite Of Gratefulness

Looking at some of the opposites of gratefulness can help us better understand exactly what it is.

The opposite of gratefulness is:

• Anger
• Complaining
• Discontentment
• Envy
• Frustration
• Thanklessness
• Unhappiness

The good news is that you can’t simultaneously be grateful and be in any of the states just mentioned.

You could therefore say that gratefulness is exclusive – it expands and doesn’t make room for anything else.

When you’re grateful, you simply don’t have space to complain or be angry or frustrated. You only have room for gratefulness.

Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

Wouldn’t you rather be filled with gratefulness than with envy, anger, or discontentment?

If so, then you must seek out a life of gratitude.

The Power Of Gratitude

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” (Denis Waitley)

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