TLDR: Practicing gratitude is one of the important cures for your salty ass.
Practicing gratitude seems to be a some kind of pop psychology mumbo jumbo that you see/read often on social media and other blogs(which arguably aren't as cool as mine. Change my mind.) Of course it's easy to be skeptical about what it is and how powerful it can be. Well let me try my best to explain why I think everyone should practice gratitude more often, the huge mental boost you gain, and how to start so you too can be a more grounded human being. As I write this during the COVID19 pandemic, I firmly believe that this could really help put into perspective how great you actually have it even though 2020 halted everyone's life. With that said let's get started.
"Gratitude is the feeling of being warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received."
Stolen directly from dictionary.com
It is the focus of what you have versus what you don't have which we are all reactively primed to do probably because of evolutionary schematics. You think your life sucks right now? I'm 99% sure there are people out there who have it way worse than you. Want to complain about your work? As I write this blog, there are close to 900,000 people in the US out of work because of La Rona. I don't know about you but when have you ever felt good about wanting more? Tell me a time when it invigorated your soul when you kept your eyes on something you don't have. I'm no minimalist nor Buddhist by any means but I'm pretty damn sure you my fellow reader can make due with a lot less than you actually think you need. Maybe it's because we live in such a competitive age that we have to always feel like we need the next best thing. Bigger numbers, a more chiseled physique, more money.
I first stumbled upon gratitude while reading personal development and I think it's safe to say that it's one of the many underlying themes to become a better version of yourself. Initially I didn't want to believe something so simple that could revolutionize the way you look at life so like any questionable thing I did in my early 20s I applied my mantra of "let's try it once."
Not a lot, not a little, just enough to make you say oh boy!
If you don't believe me let's try to practice gratitude right now. I promise no hangovers and comedowns!
When practicing gratitude, I want you to tell me 3 things you are grateful for. To make it even more challenging but more powerful, I want you to tell me 3 behaviors you did today that you're grateful for.
I'll give you some examples.
Things I'm grateful for:
A roof under my head and a bed to sleep in every night.
A steady stable job so I don't have to worry about finances.
My current overall health so I can still work out and blog.
Behaviors I did today which I'm grateful for:
Pushing myself to finish out writing this blog because it's been in the back burner for a few weeks and I promised myself to complete 2 blogs a month.
Going to the gym and actually having a pretty decent workout even though the past few days I was not in the mood. Like at all. (Rest days are very important and if you aren't taking any it either means you're not pushing hard enough to want one or you're deluding yourself.)
Post about my good friend using my IG platform because I believe in his product and I expect nothing in return.
If you did this exercise right you should feel a sense of peace, contentment and/or happiness within yourself. If you didn't feel it yet then try doing this on a daily basis for a week or two and I promise you'll be a much more calmer, grounded human being than before. Also if you're journaling which is a very valuable skill then you could start off writing about the three things you're grateful for and then elaborate.
I'm a huge fan of practicing gratitude. I've been doing it since 2017. Especially working in the ER where I see so much fucked up shit ranging from a homeless person trying to find housing for the night to a young person with terminal cancer. I've met people with seemingly everything in the world who are the biggest jerks to people who either lost everything or have nothing with the biggest hearts. Aside from working out and being blessed with a strong support system, I really believe practicing gratitude is a wonderful coping mechanism. 2020 has indeed been a really weird tough year for all of us and so if you're going through something then give it a shot.
I myself feel very calm, at ease and appreciative of what I currently have when I practice gratitude. I try my best to stay in an even mood as much as possible which this definitely helps out with. If you've got big dreams and restless energy like me, then you probably resonate with the quote, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." I think it's easy to misinterpret and use content and settling interchangeably. Well I'm here to tell you that practicing gratitude taught me what feeling content is and not settling which is like trying to compare apples and oranges. For me, contentment is feeling like you have more than enough and are genuinely happy with where/who you are. For me it's a warm, fuzzy feeling inside your chest. Settling is feeling like you don't have enough, won't ever will and it's usually based on feeling fearful so you just decide(voluntarily or not) that this is it.
I think it's really helped give me the mental edge to push past through the many ruts in my life which I think will definitely help you. It helped me through my tough transition of being an ER nurse from mental health. It also helped me get me through my back to back injuries in powerlifting which I'm extremely grateful that they were all minor(see what I did there?). Like I said before, it's really easy to tell yourself that "I'm just not good enough and I'll never get it" but what if we were a bit nicer to ourselves and instead say, "I'm not good enough yet but I will be," then practice gratitude by saying how grateful you are to be able to try again.
Ultimately I think everyone should practice gratitude because you'll be happier while making peace with both yourself and the world around you. With that said, thank you all for getting this far and before I go I just wanted to tell you all how grateful I am for you to actually take the time to read what I write. You could have chosen to read blogs written by people much smarter than me but instead you decided to invest a few minutes of your time with me and I can't thank you enough. So long as there is someone out there who benefits from my ramblings I will continue to provide content!
Sincerely,
Joseph L.
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