Can something as simple as a daily gratitude practice have the power to truly improve your life? Is it worth the time and effort it takes to add it into your already busy schedule? Does it offer any other advantages instead of just feeling grateful? Here are five ways in which the hidden power of gratitude can help you manifest your desires.
Hidden Power of Gratitude #1 – Present Moment Living
When you are grateful, you find yourself fully present in the current moment. It’s like waking up from a daze to discover a treasure right before you, something that may have been there for quite some time that you never noticed before.
Most people spend their lives caught between memories of the past or worries about the future. As a result, they end up sleepwalking through their days, weeks and years. A full life can only be lived in the now.
Hidden Power of Gratitude #2 – Connection
Experiencing gratitude allows you to connect with yourself, your surroundings, the people in your life and with something greater than yourself.
When you practice gratitude regularly, you start to discover what really matters to you. You begin to realize what touches your heart, what inspires awe and the things that you truly care about the most.
Your life begins to feel richer as you become aware of the smaller things that you already have that make life truly worth living.
You begin to appreciate the people in your life. You become more understanding and develop greater empathy for others. You realize that you are not alone. You begin to see just how much help and support you actually do receive from others without even realizing it.
It allows you to connect with something greater than yourself. You notice synchronicities in your daily life. You start to see how seemingly unrelated things begin to connect in unexpected ways. You may find you can reach flow states and accomplish your dreams easier than you did in the past.
Hidden Power of Gratitude #3 – Perspective
Gratitude changes your perspective. So much of our lives are spent struggling, trying to go, do or accomplish something. We consistently live in a state of trying to be somewhere or someone else.
When you focus on what you don’t have or what you believe is missing in your life, it’s easy to feel tired and discouraged. It can seem as if there is never enough, that you are not enough. The color drains out of life and all you see are shades of gray.
When you appreciate what you do have and where you are now, the colors begin to return. You begin to feel more abundant and more secure.
It’s easier to believe that you’re actually doing okay, that no matter where you are right now, you can handle it. You’ve come this far and you can make things better.
Hidden Power of Gratitude #4 – Happiness
A practice of gratitude helps you to experience more good feelings. When you appreciate something, you feel good, which leads to other positive feelings such as happiness, peace, and joy.
The better you feel, the easier it is to overcome old patterns. Negative thoughts start to shrink down to size when you start feeling good.
It starts a chain reaction. The more good feelings you have, the more optimistic you become. The more optimistic you are, the more opportunities and good things you will not only notice, but also be willing to accept into your life. Which gives you more things to be grateful for and happy about.
Hidden Power of Gratitude #5 – Happier Memories
Practicing gratitude leads to happier memories.
By taking the time to allow yourself to relax, become present and fully experience all of the wonders that your life has to offer you, you not only create a better present but also create a storehouse of wonderful memories.
If it seems that your life is full of bad memories, you can turn it around. One of the best ways to overcome old, bad memories is to create a lot of new, happy ones. Focus on making so many new good memories that you have no room for the old ones. A practice of gratitude is a good way to start.
Practicing gratitude doesn’t have to be done daily. It can be done whenever and wherever is right for you. True gratitude is a state of mind, a way of feeling and perceiving what’s in your life and the entire universe around you.
The power of gratitude brings you into the present, allows you to connect with what really matters to you, change your perspective, feel good and create more happiness in your life. This, in itself, is a lot to be grateful for.