Gratitude

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YOUR ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
Nobel laureate, Hans Seyle, spent his life studying the effects of
stress on human physiology. He reported that the attitude of
"vengeance" had the most stressful impact on the human body. He also
declared that "gratitude" was the least stressful emotion anyone could
experience. If you strengthened your level of gratitude, you'd lower
your stress level...something each of us could well afford to do.

Sachiko Mirata, a scholar of Islam, calls gratitude the first
character trait that people owe Allah. He writes, "Ingratitude is to
shut our eyes to the obvious." When we open our eyes to all that is
around us, and we contemplate all with a grateful heart, then even the
common articles made for daily use become endowed with beauty. To
paraphrase George Washington Carver, "when you love [appreciate] it
enough, anything will talk with you."

How can your daily actions display your growing gratitude? Here are
some helpful hints.

---Express your thankfulness by doing the necessary, but menial tasks
around your home, so that other family members don't have to do them.
Become like the Franciscan, Brother Lawrence when he prayed, "Lord,
make me a saint through my washing the pots and pans."

---Make the words, "Thank you for..." a habitual part of your working
vocabulary. Kahlil Gibran once wrote, "I have learned silence from
the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the
unkind. I should not be ungrateful to those teachers." The medieval
Christian mystic Meister Eckhart suggests that if the only prayer we
say in our lifetime is "thank you," that would suffice

---Learn to appreciate who you are. Another Nobel Prize winner,
Albert Schweitzer cautions that "Your soul suffers if you live
superficially and ungratefully."

---Regard all things, all events, all living beings with
gratefulness. Take, for example a pencil, a dish, anything, and hold
it before you in both hands. Regard it for a while. Forgetting its
use and name, continue to regard it with appreciation. Ask yourself
seriously, "What is it really?" Joseph Campbell writes that when you
do this, "Its dimension of wonder opens; for the mystery of the being
of that being is identical with the mystery of the being of the
universe---and yourself."

---Gratitude paid to all around us becomes a spiritual exercise.
Daily, show your gratitude to the music that enchants you, to your
shoes that protect your feet form the wear and tear of the elements of
the earth, to the movie that brings tears to your eyes and joy to your
heart, to the warmth of the sun upon which all life depends.

Finally, strengthen your gratitude for the relationships you have
with everyone around you. Appreciate how people have touched your
life, however briefly. The value of personal relationships to other
living beings creates intimacy. Intimacy creates understanding.
Understanding creates love. And love after all, is that for which we
need to be most grateful. Take your life for grateful, not for granted, and you may indeed find joy in your being alive.

"A good time is a taste of Gratefulness.."

By Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D.

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Prayer of Gratitude

Father, thank you for being.
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for the Fellowship of life.
Thank you for my teacher.
Thank you for what you have given me.
Thank you for what you have taken away.
Thank you for what is left.
Thank you for this opportunity, at last,
to be of service to you and my fellows.

Amen.
http://www.sober.org/Prospect.html

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Gratitude Is....

Gratitude is owned by everyone and no
one. Gratitude is in cities, in the country, in houses
of worship, in darkened allies, in caves, in homes
and in tiny apartments. Gratitude grows the more
you tap into it through acknowledgment, sharing
and awareness. Gratitude is available to each of
us at anytime.

Gratitude is a positive virus. Gratitude
energy can be passed simply, effortlessly and
freely from one person to another to another to
another.

Gratitude is a choice. We choose whether we
want to embrace its transformative energy. Gratitude
has no opinion, it simply blesses those who are
open. Choose Gratitude.

Gratitude changes lives and is the doorway to the
manifestation of miracles. Through consciousness
and acknowledgment, it allows more wonder, more
glory, more celebration to flow.

Gratitude awakens the soul to an exponential
increase in every area: spiritual, physical, relational,
emotional. This awakening moves beyond the
intellect, it moves beyond the usual and into the
spaces we sometimes forget to treasure.

Gratitude is fuel for the creative fire and reminds
artists of all sorts that anything is truly possible.
Gratitude sings, it paints, it sculpts, it flies. It
speaks through us to others and lays the foundation
for a more empowered future.

Gratitude bridges areas of weakness because
it is through acknowledging our weaknesses we
are able to partner with others - including divine
forces - and transmute what we previously saw
as weaknesses into strengths. Perhaps these
weaknesses are turned into strengths of an
entirely different kind.

Gratitude always finds a way if and when we
are open to it. It flows like an river, following an
ancient, pre-determined path. The moment we
join that flow, magic begins to happen - perhaps
in small, insignificant ways at first - and we quickly
learn that there are no small, insignificant ways.
They are all magnificent beyond measure.

Gratitude is visible on people's faces - it brings
an instant face lift, a needle free form of the wrinkle
eliminating Botox. Gratitude replenishes and
refreshes us when we are weary, it quenches
our energetic thirst like a perfect spring of water.

Gratitude is in nature, it is in people. Gratitude
gives us more courage, it grants wishes, it is
supremely engaging and fulfilling. Gratitude
purely and simply is.

2004 by Julie Jordan Scott

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So In Gratitude I Say

God has granted me a new day
So in gratitude I say
May you find
Peace and serenity
May you enjoy being free
My heart is open
To my inner voice
Today I make a choice
I choose to smile
I choose to spread joy
I feel like a child
With a new toy
I smile and tell everyone
I happen to meet
How God has granted me
A new life so sweet
Today I have been granted
Another chance
So in gratitude
I now dance

Daniel
4/17/2002

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The Transformative Power of Gratitude
Simple practices can reconnect us with the flow of life.
By Kim Ridley
My life was humming along last year when the universe delivered back-to-back wake-up calls. First, I lost my job when the magazine I edited went belly-up. A month later, my father landed in the intensive care unit. It felt as though life were peeling my layers, like a tree being stripped of bark.

Not knowing what else to do, I drove down to my parents' house. Their vulnerability terrified me. I visited my father at the hospital every day, trying to hold back tears as I stood awkwardly by his bed and stroked his thick white hair. At home, I cooked, answered the phone, and washed the dishes. One afternoon, I held my mother's hand as she wept. Its warmth and softness, its aliveness, astonished me. And that's when the most unexpected thought welled up from some fresh chink in my heart: I am so blessed to be here right now.

Suddenly, I felt lucky to have the time to be with my parents, to witness them, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I hadn't lost my job. Now, I had all the time there was.

I felt even more grateful for this gift of time when my father returned home. Grateful for the smallest things: poring over seed catalogues together, watching sitcoms with him, listening to his breathing while he slept in his recliner. Grateful for the cold wind on my face as I cross the supermarket parking lot on an errand for my parents. Grateful for my brother's love and care, for my mother's humanity, for the moon climbing the maple trees outside my old bedroom window.

Looking back, I never would have chosen the crises of my father's illness and losing work I loved. But my parents' vulnerability—and my own—frighten me less these days. Gratitude opened the gates of tenderness—right in the midst of fear and uncertainty.

Since then, I've started making a conscious effort to practice gratitude in some small way every day. When I do, I feel much more connected with the flow of life, instead of isolated and alone in my own struggles and fears.

Gratitude can be a powerfully transformative practice. Psychologists Robert Emmons of U.C. Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami have found that practicing gratitude can actually improve our emotional and physical well-being. Their ongoing Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness has found that people who keep weekly gratitude journals had fewer physical symptoms, exercised more, had a better outlook on life and were more likely to reach their goals. People with neuromuscular disease who practiced daily gratitude "had more high-energy positive moods," felt more connected to others, and felt more positive about life in comparison to a control group.

"Practicing gratitude helps people extract the most out of life," Emmons says. "People can also experience an overall shift to a more benevolent view of the world. I think it's kind of a spiritual shift for some people because it makes them more aware of life as a gift."

To help strengthen my own "gratitude muscle," I asked Emmons and several inspiring practitioners to share their suggestions. Here are daily practices anyone can try.

1. See the giver behind the gift. "We ask people to focus every day on a particular person who provided them with a benefit," Emmons says. That's really what gratitude is. It's not just something you're happy about." It could be anyone from the spouse who made you a perfect cup of coffee this morning to the person who bagged your groceries.

2. Ask yourself three questions every day. A powerful way to cultivate gratitude is to focus on what is really happening in our lives, rather than falling into the traps of complaining and drama, says Gregg Krech, author of "Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self Reflection," and co-founder of the ToDo Institute in Monkton, Vermont. The basic practice of Naikan, which translates to "inside-looking," consists of asking oneself three questions every day: "What have I received today? What have I given? What trouble have I caused?" While Naikan doesn't deny the difficult parts of our lives, it puts things into perspective, says Krech, who asks himself these three questions every evening.

"When I list everything I received and then everything I gave each day, what I have in the giving column is always so much shorter than what's in the receiving column," he says. "As we become aware that we've received so much more than we've given, not only does that cultivate gratitude, it also cultivates often a sense of wanting to give something back to the world."

3. Practice even when you don't feel like it. "One of the mistakes people often make in our culture is thinking you have to feel grateful to practice gratitude," says psychologist Miriam Greenspan, author of Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair. "You can practice anytime—when you feel sorrow, great anxiety over a parent's imminent death, if you have a disabled child. Whatever one can muster at these points as a prayer of gratitude—okay, I'm still breathing, or I have friends who care about me—tips the experience from being immersed unmindfully in one's suffering to moving into the present moment with a more holistic perspective. We see that there is suffering, but there is also this gratitude, and we can hold them together."

4. Make thank-you your mantra. Every moment offers an opportunity for thanks, says Nancy Hathaway, senior dharma teacher at the Kwan Um Zen School and a family mindfulness consultant in Blue Hill, Maine. She uses "thank-you" as a mantra to return to the present moment. "On the first day of spring, I was raking the gravel off the grass. It was hard, and I was starting to complain to myself," Hathaway says. "When I caught myself thinking, I switched over to 'thank you.' I remembered I really wanted to rake, and I wanted springtime. Gratitude practice for me is about letting go of thinking and welcoming in the present moment."

5. Create a simple family ritual. "In our family, every evening when we have dinner, we say our thank you's," says Greenspan. "It's not a formal prayer of any kind, but just what we're grateful for in the moment, and that's all. It brings us back, it's a touchstone to the miracles of life that we may have been overlooking."

6. Bow to life. "I do three bows in the morning," Hathaway says. "The first bow is to my self as part of the universe. The second bow is to my family, children, and friends to acknowledge and appreciate them. The third is bowing to the universal life force and what is. Doing this helps me let go of controlling, and instead open to the flow of life."

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The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.


-Brother David Steindl-Rast

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Gratitude in Reflection

As I reflect upon my past
and see the things I've done.
The selfish things to just fit in,
I thought that they were fun.

In retrospect I've realized,
that every evil deed,
were defects of my character,
driven by my greed.

Thru the years I tried so hard,
to make up for my past.
Good things that I tried to do,
would seem to never last.

I tried so hard to overcome,
the wickedness in me.
Yet when I thought I really had,
I failed to truly see.

Once again the greed and lust,
would creep back in my heart.
I'd pick up my dearest friend,
drink and drugs would start.

These friends would always take me,
to places that I hated,
That was fine, because you see,
they kept me quite sedated.

As my life continued,
the sickness in me grew,
Insanity and darkness,
was all I ever knew.

Today I am so grateful,
for I've finally found my way.
To the peace of mind I longed for,
in the program of AA

Rebecca Ann

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Gratitude

Another day of gratitude
Fades gently with the night
Mine has been the privilege
To pray and read and write
Sobriety again is mine
Earned by the Grace of God
Learning one day at a time
The path others have trod
I haven't had a drink today
What happens matters not
Easy does it, first things first
I haven't lost the plot
Applied the Program for today
Shared with AA friends
Another four-and-twenty hours
Where the story ends - Just for today.

Submitted By
Kaz

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So Grateful

I am grateful when I open my eyes
For my God has blessed me I realize
I'm ready when God sends someone my way
I get on my knees and I pray
God takes care of all my needs
As I go out and plant His seeds
I plant them and God makes them grow
As I follow the paths that I know
So many show up at our doors to be free
Of all the madness that they see
We love them and invite them to stay awhile
So by Gods love we can smile
He grants us peace and serenity
As we try to help all we see

Daniel M Corkery
7/10/2001

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I'm so Grateful

I'm so grateful that GOD
has delivered me from drugs,
and now I go to NA meetings
where I receive lots of hugs.
I'm so grateful today that money
does not burn a hole in my hands,
and I no longer run to give it to the drug man.
I'm so grateful to have a roof over my head,
life on the other side, I would probably be dead.
I'm so grateful to have a network of recovering friends,
who I know will be with me till the end.

I'm so grateful to have GOD in my heart,
for he has given me a brand new start,
I'm so grateful for my pastor at church,
because listening to him share
the words of God I have learned so much.
I'm so grateful to now be singing in the choir,
and it's all due to my higher power.
I'm so grateful because life on this side is so good,
Although I'd never thought I could do it,
my family always knew that I could.

I'm so grateful that recovery allows me to share
my experiences, hopes and strength with others,
and by doing so I'm allowed to go further.
I'm so grateful that God wakes me
every morning with "Peace of mind,"
because finally I left my other life behind
I'm so grateful that I know who I am and why I'm here,
God has also delivered me from fear

I'm so grateful to finally have a normal life,
although it's times that it's hard,
but with GOD living in my Heart, Mind and Soul
I will continue to do my part.

Written by: Ms. Carolyn Ann Jordan