In one of my last posts we talked about forgiveness, today I would like to share my thoughts on gratefulness.

Why to be grateful?

Being grateful can bring us a lot of benefit to not only our lives but also the lives of the ones close to us, like friends or family, because by having this feeling we tend to feel more positive about life, therefore it becomes easier for us to share our positivity to other people.

Many times we might think that the people that surround us, must be there with us just like that, we forget that it is really a privilege to be able to share quality moments with other people, to develop relationships and friendship, one of the biggest joys in life is to have a deep connection with another human being, and when we achieve this, we should be grateful

Something as simple as having fun with our pets can turn a bad day into a good one! And our pet will be so happy for sharing time with us, double benefit!

We might forget to thank our friends, our family, our coworkers and even our neighbors (if they are good) for being there, for sharing moments and simply for sharing life with us. If we truly feel grateful it is possible for these small gestures to become a permanent thing in our daily lives, having then a positive impact on the life of our social circle.

Simple things like showing a smile when speaking with a stranger, saying "thank you" when receiving help, sending a message to our cousin we haven’t spoke for about 6 months, these things don’t require any effort from us, yet they make the other person feel better.

We might forget to appreciate being able to enjoy little things like a perfectly blue sky, the sand in our feet, the smell of the sea, the jokes with a coworker, a good tv show from time to time, an unexpected notification from an old friend, or simply a random person helping us out on the street... you know what I mean. Little things that make us smile on the inside.

If we show our gratefulness this proves the other person that their actions have an impact and that in some way they have helped us with what they have done or said. Remember that in which someone has thanked you for something, how did you feel? Possibly ... grateful! Yes! one of the characteristics of gratitude is that it generates more gratitude! It seems that this attitude has no waste! Like a never ending chain of positivism being expanded your everyone!

Just chatting with friends makes us happy, and who doesn't like to spend time with a positive person? Everyone likes it!

Besides, being grateful gives us more benefits. The others will hold you in high regard, they will enjoy spending with you and will value any efforts you make for them. It makes you feel better person and valued by others by improving our communication and our relationships with others. Which contributes to raise your self-esteem and self-confidence, allowing you to keep,growing, maturing and be closer to your better self.

If throughout the day we think of all the little things or gestures that have made us enjoy that day a little bit more, we will surely notice there are many more of those than we realize. Our life is full of little joys in everyplace at every time, and it’s up to us to ignore them, or appreciate them. Must of us go through our day full speed because that’s how our society is right now, it’s fast paced and we need to be like that if we want to stay afloat.

How can we practice gratefulness on a daily basis?

Simply by paying attention to what surrounds you, what happens to you every day that makes you feel good, that gives you positive emotions. What I want to say is that by stopping for a few minutes, and enjoying the beauty of the things that surrounds we will feel recharged and ready to continue with our day, with more energy than before. Try to put your focus on everything good that that is near you and embrace the feeling of gratefulness.

Thank you wind!

Another thing is we need to realize no one can read minds so we should not assume that others know what we think and feel, so perhaps we might ve very grateful but if we don’t show it the other person will simply never know about it. So when we are sharing this feeling, the best way is to do it on a sincere and totally honest way, and the more we practice it the more automatic it will become for us to show our gratefulness, spreading positive energy to the people close to us who deserve it.

Another thing we need to take into account, is that even if we start to show more of our gratefulness, other people won’t be necessary like this with you, but this is totally normal and we shouldn’t be frustrated by it. Everyone of us is free to think, decide, speak and act as their wish, so sharing our gratefulness without expecting it anything in return is probably better. Sometimes we just need to act towards giving and not necessarily receiving, and this is probably one of those cases.

Conclusion

Being grateful is good for us, for our enjoyment of our everyday live, and it can also have a positive impact in the life of the people that surrounds us. By being grateful we can improve the mood of other people simply by giving them little gestures of gratitude.

Be grateful! We all have tons of reasons for it, yet not all of us are

If people near us start to see our positivity, they can decide to also adopt a more positive mindset and therefore creating a chain of positive interactions between individuals, increasing with time and adding more and more people wanting to share their good feelings with everyone else.

Nevertheless, it’s important to not expect anything in return, and understand other people might not be willing to adopt this mindset immediately, so sharing our gratefulness without expecting any gesture towards us is probably the wiser way to approach this.