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Living In Gratitude: What is Grateful Living?

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Grateful living is important in the world because, in our constant pursuit of more and better, we can easily lose sight of the riches that lay right in front of us and within us. ~ Guri Mehta

Imagine walking on a beach just before sunset. The sand is silky and warm as it slides gently between your toes. A mild breeze arises, caressing your face and gently ruffling your hair. You inhale deeply, feeling the cool salt air fill your lungs as the clouds explode in a riot of pink, orange, and purple. Waves make fingers of foam on the sand that reach out to lovingly tickle your toes. A slight smile curls your lips as you take it all in – the air, the sand, the vibrant sky, the soothing sound of the waves – and exhale gratitude.

Grateful living is moving through every day in an ever-present, thoughtful manner. It’s noticing the abundance that surrounds us and mindfully being appreciative rather than taking things for granted or (un)consciously dismissing the beauty and blessings in life.

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Living In Gratitude: Hugs

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You can’t wrap love in a box, but you can wrap a person in a hug.

Social distancing. Two words that are now indelible parts of our nomenclature.

Although social separation is very important for all of us to engage in right now for the health of our nation, as social creatures, humans thrive on touch. Our emotional, mental and physical wellbeing is nourished when we connect with others. And hugs are one of the best ways to make us feel connected to someone else.

Studies show that adults and children alike need between three and five hugs a day. And now more than ever, those hugs are vital and mostly virtual.

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Living In Gratitude: 7 Ways to Cultivate Resilience

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Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient. ~Steve Maraboli

Resilience, the ability to recover quickly from adversity, is a skill that proves its worth throughout our lives. The characteristics of this personal toughness include:

  • They practice mindfulness and purposefully pay attention to their life
  • They possess a solid self esteem
  • Recognizing that this too shall pass
  • Use past successes to confront current challenges
  • Not comparing themselves to others
  • Realizing setbacks and adversity are stepping stones to transformation
  • Finding humor in every situation
  • They relinquish control

Harnessing the capacity to recover from difficult times is critical for healthy childhood development but this characteristic is often needed most as we enter midlife. During this time, life can serve up innumerable stressors: divorce, loss of a parent, financial concerns, illness, or obstacles in our careers.

Thankfully, with the perspective gained from life experience as well as the ability to better manage emotions, those in their middle years possess characteristics and behaviors that may allow resiliency to be more easily developed. Read more

Living In Gratitude: Resilience

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I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. ~Carl Gustav Jung

Resilience is our capacity for stress-related growth, to recover quickly from difficulties.

There are two distinct aspects to resilience:

  • Durability or hardiness, which is 0ur ability to manage daily stressors and hassles successfully
  • Bouncing Back, our capacity to effectively recover and grow from major life adversities like death or divorce

We can build and reinforce our resilience muscles by focusing on three key things.

  1. THINK DIFFERENTLY

By recognizing and understanding how we think about adversity, stress and challenging scenarios, we can alter how we think about them and as such, how we react to them. Our thinking runs along a sliding scale from optimism to pessimism.

People who have a more pessimistic way of thinking tend to impart personalization, permanence and pervasiveness on stressful situations. They tell themselves:

“This problem will be around forever. It will affect my entire life and its all my fault.”

Consistent pessimistic thinking increases our likelihood of depression, anxiety, hopelessness and helplessness. Read more