Practice Gratitude For Wellness: 7 Solid Tips

When you practice gratitude, your life’s energy begins to shift. It will improve your health, enhance your relationships, and increase your abundance. Most people are grateful for what they have and appreciative of the people in their lives. While this is true, the benefits that come from practicing gratitude may become overshadowed by thoughts of lack and a desire to have more. When you begin to intentionally practice gratitude in all ways of being, the transformation set into motion is nothing less than miraculous.

So, Let’s Begin!

1. Reframe Annoyances and Practice Gratitude With Intentional Refocusing

Check your attitude and explanatory style when you are feeling annoyed or salty. Are you explaining your life circumstances to yourself with an overly pessimistic lens? I do not suggest adopting a pollyannaish interpretation of what is happening in your world, but a grounded reality check and intentional refocusing. Here is an example from my personal experience.

• My daughter does excessive laundry, and the washer filter is clogged. To complete further laundry, the filter needs cleaning. I need to remove the washer’s lower panel. It is neither an easy nor a fun task. I have a choice in attitude and focus. To reframe the annoyance, I recognize the “problem” can be fixed (it’s not broken forever), I have the tools to fix it, and my daughter has done all her laundry and our shared towels. I am still inconvenienced by having the water partly flood the floor while I remove the filter and delayed by the time spent fixing the washer before I can start my laundry. Simple acceptance and acknowledgment of the good create a lighter version of the experience. Had my dad been fixing the filter, without a doubt, there would be swearing.

Our experiences shift when we find a silver lining and practice gratitude around what we discover. Dirty clothes mean we have clothes to wear, and owning a washer and dryer is a luxury many people could only dream of.

2. Simple Appreciation of ‘Modest’ Things as a Way to Practice Gratitude

Joy comes from the appreciation of ‘modest’ things and recognizing the roles they play in our lives. When our focus is on the beauty within all things, it amplifies these energies and brings more beauty for us to experience.

Pictured below are the staples of my sewing kit. I’d prefer not to sew, but I feel satisfied when it’s complete. The item on the left was always a curious tool to me, and now that I’m older, its perceived value has increased. A small thing that I’m grateful to have, as it makes the chore of sewing that much easier. The thimble (my grandmother’s) tarnished, yet no less functional, is another treasure for those mundane moments. Thank you, sacred thimble, for preventing me from stabbing myself!

3. Simple Appreciation of the Natural World as a Way to Practice Gratitude

There are many ways to appreciate the gentle guidance of the natural world and the beauty within simplicity. Living in Western Massachusetts and rural Vermont, I’ve had the most extraordinary encounters with wildlife and been in awe of the beauty of the natural world. These experiences are deeply healing and uplifting, keeping me grounded and anchored in connecting to my intuition and values. When you slow down, look out, and into the natural world, peace and gratitude follow.

For inspiration to entertain this way of practicing gratitude, I invite you to view photos and read short descriptions at my Etsy store, Immagina Una Bella Vita. May they help you picture a beautiful life and feel grateful for the beauty of the natural world around you, wherever you may be and in whatever way you can.

Pictured below is some Ornamental Kale we grew and planted with winter berries and bittersweet.

4. Amp Up Gratitude Practices During the Holidays, Birthdays, and Major Life Events

While practicing gratitude and getting into the spirit of giving during the holidays comes easily for some, there are extra challenges for many that make this hard. Emotional memories of times of familial conflict, loss, and lack shift perspectives away from the joy and experiences that make these celebratory times feel special. It takes patience and practice to shift away from old negative wiring to experience the transformational attractive forces from practicing gratitude. This shift is the key to unlocking desired experiences and improving your wellness and quality of life every day.

Be Creative With Gratitude Practices During the Holidays, Major Life Events, and Every Day to Affirm your “Good”

Placing an intentional focus on gratitude specific to the season or event lightens the experience for you and everyone around you. Consider placing the energy of gratitude into holiday cards, what you cook or bake, and all forms of gift-giving. These activities are grounding and have a magic that quells and extinguishes negative thinking. Your spending is never necessary to show your love or gratitude. Your sincere appreciation and grounded presence alone are gifts.

Many parents are familiar with the Gratitude Turkey Activity that has kids cut out a turkey shape from construction paper and then write out what they’re thankful for on construction paper ‘feathers’ to attach to their turkey base. My daughter and I continued this activity every year at Thanksgiving until recently. We have upgraded it to an adult version, so now our gratitude practice is to write what we’re thankful for on strips of paper we place into categories and later burn.

Elevate your energy by creatively practicing gratitude in whatever expression feels good for you.

5. Celebrate the Good that Exists Now!

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life

is the foundation for all abundance.

Eckhart Tolle

Never delay your joy. Things needn’t be perfect for you to celebrate all the good that exists in your present experience. You may have bills to pay, laundry to do, conflict at work or in relationships, and still choose to practice gratitude and acknowledge what you are blessed to have. Doing this is the secret to vibrationally bringing in all the health, wealth, and abundance you desire.

Practice Gratitude to Bring More Abundance & Tap Into Your Inner Wealth

We are creative, powerful beings in an infinite, ever-expanding universe. The focus of your thoughts and emotions will draw to you like energies. Remember who you are to align with your abundance. You are made strong by practicing gratitude. Increased strength through this practice enhances the qualities of maturity, resilience, and self-trust (your inner wealth). Come sincerely into the energy of appreciation to align with all forms of abundance. True wealth is particularly personal and depends on your values. While someone may value and appreciate new electronics, my love and appreciation are directed to my spring woodland garden. Practice gratitude for what is valuable to you.

Practice Gratitude to Experience Greater Connection

When you are grateful in thought and deed for what is precious in life, you bless them. This energy returns tenfold. Enhance connections through gratitude and experience the blessing of the energy returned. The practice of gratitude is intrinsically uplifting and meaningful, so if you feel in need of connection, give thanks. Gratitude has the potential to open your eyes to the beauty that exists in your life right now that may be beneath your awareness.

Practice Gratitude to Enhance Positive Feelings and Experiences of Joy

Naturally reinforcing, the practice of gratitude will elevate your mood, and lead to more gratitude. Anxious thoughts work similarly, the more you worry, the more you activate fight or flight wiring and feed worry-based thoughts. Choose gratitude whenever possible.

Practice Gratitude to Support Your Good Health

Research has shown that the practice of gratitude is associated with many positive effects on a person’s physical and mental health. Expressing gratitude can improve sleep, mood, and immunity, and can decrease depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and disease.

Heart.org

When you intentionally practice gratitude during stress, pain, or discord, you will feel greater peace and comfort. By regularly practicing gratitude, you’ll experience improvement in your thoughts, energy, physiology, and in turn, your overall wellness. In time, you will notice when you shift away from gratitude. Wisdom is choosing thoughts of gratitude even when it’s hard because you know it’s good for you.

6. When You Find it Difficult to Practice Gratitude, Shift Your Perspective

Never deny or suppress your emotional experience through emotional bracing. Breathe through emotional heaviness, shift, and pivot toward greater peace. A powerful way to transform difficult experiences is to find an underlying blessing. When the events of 2020 forced me to close my studio I accepted it was what I needed to do. The shutdown offered me much-needed rest that I wouldn’t have otherwise taken. The following year was transformational in ways I had never anticipated.

Some distance from a situation is often needed to move into acceptance, find the lesson or blessing, change course, or hear your inner voice. When gratitude feels out of reach, allow for new perspectives.

The Farmer’s Luck

When things don’t go our way, it can be easy to entertain thoughts of lack, misfortune, and negative expectations. The Farmer’s Luck is a tale that when remembered, can help you with perspective and shift toward TRUST and ACCEPTANCE. The farmer maintains detachment from what unfolds in the story and replies neutrally to suggestions that he is experiencing good or bad luck in response to his losses or gains. There are many Zen-like interpretations of the moral of the tale, but as it relates to this article, I’d like to suggest that we have a choice. At any given moment, within the complexity of our experiences, we can choose to practice gratitude for what is good right now.

Emotional Dysregulation and Activation Narrow the Picture

Anxious anticipation, rehashing the past, and being lost in the details of the day take you away from the gifts of a given moment. As a single mother, presence took a lot of effort. If I had a nugget of advice to offer my younger self, it would be to slow it down. Find the gifts within the mess and trust that somehow, without conscious effort, things work out. When I finally said ‘fuck it’, and stopped bracing against what might happen, my life unfolded with greater ease. Gratitude feels out of reach in struggle and emerges more clearly with surrender.

Every Adversity, Every Failure, and Every Heartbreak Carries With It The Seed Of An Equal Or Greater Benefit.

Napoleon Hill

Shifting Perspective Helps You Practice Gratitude

Shifting perspective is NOT false positivity. Instead, it is a means to explore other interpretations of a situation that help you entertain new grateful trains of thought. You can do this while also accepting other emotions and thoughts as valid. Grief, anger, or sadness may not immediately disappear when you practice gratitude; however, your perception of what is occurring in the moment may.

Very recently, I suddenly lost my beloved cat and was flooded with grief. Some say that grief is love with no place to go. I looked on my desk at a pile of notes, and there I’d written: Illuminate the good in what feels hard. I’d written it in response to something shared with me by someone who’d experienced multiple losses in a short period. At first, I struggled to release the grip of loss-related thoughts but then shifted to the energy of the gift of him. Soon after, I felt grateful to have had such a sweet soul in my life, although the time felt cut short. Gratitude didn’t eliminate my grief but lightened it.

If you’re having difficulty finding things to be grateful for, think of the struggles that others have that you don’t. Reframe in such a way that reminds you of your blessings.

I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

Hellen Keller

Everyone shifts when they’re ready to align. The depth of a person’s struggle is likely not apparent. So what may appear on the surface to be an ungrateful attitude over a ‘bad hair day’ is often much more. Practice gratitude because you can, and know that some days you might not be able to dig that deep. Celebrate and give thanks for small victories: if you slept 3 hours last night instead of none, keep giving thanks for that.

7. Pre-Pave Your Future: Practice Gratitude for All You Intend and All That Will Be

Decide your direction, your story, and what you intend to experience. Practice gratitude for the release of any narrative that doesn’t feel good. You cannot control the events of the world, the perceptions, opinions, or actions of people, so don’t try. Choose instead to practice gratitude for all the good that is and will be. Your blessings are many and will increase even when life feels messy or imperfect. A life well lived practices gratitude even on a cloudy day. See the sun and give thanks for its arrival before the dawn to make the best use of your co-creative energies.

Unleash the magic within that comes from a simple appreciation of all that is. Practice gratitude in all ways of being. In how you cook, drive, plan, or work. When you dress, care for your loved ones, exercise, or entertain. Do this and you’ll amplify your blessings.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you’ll consider practicing gratitude daily and that, in time, gratitude practices become a natural way of interpreting the world around you.

Please visit my Coaching Services page for more information or contact me to book an appointment for support with how to practice gratitude so you may become a vibrational match with the experiences you most desire.