Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life

by M.J. Ryan

“It is not hard to live through a day if you can live through a moment.

I noticed that if a weekend went by without my buying something other than food for the week, I got an itchy feeling. I wanted to shop, to buy, to consume—it didn't matter what. I didn't actually need anything, but I wanted to purchase something.

A perennial dieting tip is to eat something and then wait twenty minutes before deciding to eat something again. The reason is that your body needs that much time to register that it is full. If you keep eating without pausing, you will not realize that your body is full, and therefore you may overeat.

However you experience God—as loving Father, nurturing Mother, Creator of all that is, your Higher Power, the Spirit of Kindness and Compassion, whatever is true for you—the quickest, easiest way to connect to Him/Her/It is to express your gratitude.

It is natural—you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”

we don't get to gratitude by guilt-trips.

Guilt is a terrible motivator. It makes us want to run away from whatever is making us feel bad, and to avoid looking at whatever is underlying it.

Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see, only the way you see it.

Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World.

Fox remind us that truly every single thing we have has been given to us, not necessarily because we deserve it, but gratuitously, for no known reason, and that the same is true for every living thing.

None of us—bee, flower, person—did anything to earn this gift, nor is anything required of us in return.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. . . . —VICTOR FRANKL

“Attitude Is the Only Disability.”

Victor Frankl

“He who knows enough is enough will always have enough.”

“I said it was simple. I didn't say it was easy.”

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. —ALBERT EINSTEIN

Why do we in the West have so much of the stuff? We didn't do anything necessarily to deserve it (and those who think they do deserve it find themselves on a moral slippery slope, which leads to the assumption that those who are suffering from poverty, illness, or plagues did something to deserve that).

It cannot exist if you don't recognize that you have received a gift, and it can't exist if you don't feel worthy of getting the gift.

The Soul of Business,

Is there something in your life that you find terribly annoying or difficult? Is there some hidden gift in the annoying situation that you, like the children in this story, can focus on to create an opportunity for gratitude?

Regret is a poison that keeps us in the past:

It was then I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. It was better than sex, better than winning the lottery, better than watching your daughter graduate from college, better and deeper than any other feeling; it is perhaps the genesis of all other really good feelings in the human repertoire. —LEWIS SMEDES, AFTER ALMOST DYING

This suggests that we actually participate in creating what happens to us by the power of our positive or negative imagery.

“When we focus on abundance, our life feels abundant; when we focus on lack, our life feels lacking. It is purely a matter of focus.”

If you haven't got all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want.

Sometimes we need to look at what hasn't befallen us to wake ourselves up to the joys of our ordinary life.

In fact, I'm convinced that this is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. A pessimist is someone who has exercised the muscles of negativity and lack till they are strongly habitual, while an optimist is a person who has developed thankfulness and a can-do attitude until these are second nature.

helpful in cultivating an attitude of gratitude. Now, every time I get caught up in wanting something and bemoaning the fact that

It's amazing how often the answer is No. Give it a try yourself right now. Do the Work of Forgiveness

Nothing blocks feelings of gratitude more than anger and resentment. That's why the practice of gratitude requires the work of forgiveness.

What helps the forgiveness process is to understand that resentment is a second-hand emotion, a cover for underlying feelings that have never been expressed.

Expectations are the killers of gratitude and joy:

The truth is we can't count on anything except our ability to choose how to respond to what happens to us.

It is only by being grateful for what is that we experience contentment, and it is contentment with what is that makes us happy in the moment—and available to whatever else life has in store for us.

“I am willing to see the gift in this experience. May the lessons be revealed to me, and may I become stronger and clearer.”

As a result, the younger generations seem to have an overinflated sense of entitlement that blocks any sense of gratitude.

Why is it that we can be so kind, tolerant, and loving to people we barely know and so demanding, cold, and downright mean to those who are the closest to us?

Then bring this ability home. Become an expert at switching from negative to positive when you find yourself on a mental rant about your mate, and see what happens in your life.

As parents, we can get so focused on everything our kids need to learn, to change, to become, that we forget to appreciate them right now for who they are.

Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful meditation for this, called The Hugging Meditation. It's very simple—all you do is hug someone three times, breathing in and out with awareness. The first time, you both think about how at some time, you don't know when, you will no longer be here. The second time, you focus on how, at some time, you don't know when, the other person will no longer be here. The third time, you truly take in that you are both here now, together in this precious moment.

wellsphere.com). Focus on what's right in your life instead of what's

“thank you” to others as often as possible. Make sure to include yourself. What did you do well today?

Especially when they're annoying or frustrating you, remember why you love your spouse, kids, and friends.

Crossroads Center in Chicago,