“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
Is it hard for you to feel gratitude about your life?
Is it hard to understand why you need to be grateful for the difficult times?
I felt hard to feel grateful for my life. I looked at gratitude as a bad memory or a disappointment has pointed a gun at me and wanted me to confess: Will you be grateful or you’ll lose your life?
Ungratefulness would take everything I love from me.
How to be grateful for a situation in which I don’t want to be? How to be grateful to the person whose words are painful? How can I be grateful for the depressive and lonely years I’ve been through?
And why should I be grateful at all?
Who says gratitude can heal my past and my broken heart? Who says it’ll change my miserable life?
It was better for me to stay where I was, instead of risking losing what I have left.
I thought gratitude wouldn’t help me find a solution to my problem, nor will it make me feel happier.
I tried writing a gratitude journal. I would fall asleep with thoughts of gratitude. But nothing helped better than when I felt how things around me feel when I ignore them and don`t appreciate what they do for me.
After a few practices, I saw changes. The first change was that I made peace with my past.
I realized that being grateful means being at peace with yourself. And when you’re at peace with yourself, miracles are possible.
Look at gratitude from the perspective of the other person, subject, situation or your past. You’ll get a response to why it’s important to feel gratitude and how to do it painlessly.
How this thing or a person feels? If it could, it would say: “Hey, look at me, I exist! I have to tell you something. You must know I’m here and I won’t go away until you pay attention to me.”
I’m now representing to you the method that has opened my eyes. I’m now more aware of the world around and within me. That world needs my love.
I imagined how my body, my sadness, and my inner child, feel when I neglect them.
All you need to do is be at some quiet place and visualize like you’re the person, a situation or emotion about which you’re ungrateful or you hate it. Feel what they might feel when you ignore them.
What are they saying to you? How do they feel? Write it down or just observe the senses in your body.
Here is the way I used to find gratitude for my life’s challenges. I know most of you also have the same life’s challenges. You can use my words or write your own words when emotions of gratitude flow from your heart.
Current situation and gratitude
“I’m here because of your past choices. You can’t learn from me until you say-Thank you.
I’m a product of your past energy. I’m bad because you see me that way. Instead, find how you can change me.
I’m like this because you choose me with your past thoughts, beliefs and with your emotions. I’m giving you an important lesson right now. If you’re not grateful for being here, then you’ll not learn the lesson.
I want you to find a pearl inside this shell. You can’t run away from me. I’ll chase you until you see the positive side of me. I, your current situation, will not last forever. I can change. I can be different. I’ll show you the way to a better life if you let me with your gratitude.”
Anger and gratitude
“I’m scared; get me out of this hell! I fight because I don’t know how to show love. No one didn’t show me how to love. I used to express aggression when I’m scared.
I need your love. Please, forgive me for what I did. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sorry.
I was not violent toward you because of you. I was violent because I was weak. I didn’t know how to love you because I didn’t love myself.
I was in your life for one reason only–to teach you how to love yourself. Find your way to love because I haven’t found mine.
Don’t underestimate your uniqueness. You are worth. I teach you how to be good towards yourself and not how to hate yourself.
If there wasn’t me, you would never know how brave you are. Your gratitude shows your braveness.”
Your childhood trauma and gratitude
“I can’t live without you. You have abandoned me. I need your love and your hug. No one didn’t know how to give me that but you can. I know because I see you suffer. It’s because you need love and hug.
I’m the younger, innocent part of you. And I don’t know a better way to ask for help than to cry and hide in a dark. Please, listen. I’m nothing without you. Give me your hand, and we’ll walk through life together; we’ll become best friends.
Save me from this darkness. I’m in your life to show that life can be cruel, but also that you’re the one who needs to save yourself. You have the cure within you.
You wouldn’t know how wonderful and brave you are if there wasn’t me, your childhood trauma, to show it to you.”
Emotional pain and gratitude
Your emotions show up when you attach to a person or a situation. They tell you how repressing of emotions is torturing you, and not the emotion itself.
Your emotions aren’t your enemies. Your emotional pain is caused by the neglect of emotions in the past. Don’t let it turn into mental illness.
“Feel us, don’t neglect us. Accept us, don’t be afraid of us.
Remember that we never want you to feel sad; we just want you to feel us. We, your emotions, are your guides through life. If you follow us, you’ll be safe.”
Loneliness and gratitude
You can feel lonely for many reasons. Sometimes you feel lonely even when you’re in the company or you have a partner. It means that loneliness is an inner feeling, and it’s not caused by the outside world.
Here’s what loneliness tells you: “You need me, I’m your energy and cleaner of your emotions. I come to you when I see you suffer. I’m your true friend when everyone else has left you.
You can always tell me your worries. To cry or scream, I won’t judge you at all. I’m helping you to recover from a breakup or some loss.
I’m helping you to find your life path and the love inside you. In solitude, and in silence, you can find answers to every question you have. I’ll always answer if you ask.
You’re never alone. You should remember that. You always have me, your lonely moments of truth.”
Death of your loved ones and gratitude
Death is unpredictable. You can’t stop it or postpone. We’ll all die, sooner or later.
It’s hard when you lose someone you’ve loved. The grief is unbearable, and it seems you’ll never going to reconcile with the fact that someone you loved is no longer alive.
Why did this happen? You miss that person so much.
It seems impossible to feel gratitude for someone’s death. Because it’s not the point to find gratitude in someone’s death, but in their existence in your life. He left the mark in his life.
The most painless way to feel gratitude is to thank for the opportunity you had that person in your life.
After death, we all return to our real state–a soul, the pure Universal energy. Our lives are our experiences in the way we wanted to feel and live as human beings.
To be grateful for someone’s death is a big decision, but you need to move on with your life. There’re other people in your life and other beautiful things waiting for your attention.
Don’t consider death as a final destination because it’s not final. Your spirit is eternal; it just needs to rest a bit until the next life he chooses.
Physical pain or illness and gratitude
The physical pain comes from your repressed emotions. When something’s wrong with your body, and you’re in pain, it’s a good sign.
Repressed emotion from the past became so deep that appeared as physical pain.
Being grateful for physical pain will give you ways to heal. Always first heal the cause of physical pain than the effect. The cause comes from a mind or a broken heart.
The burden we carry with us for years must somehow scream for help. When we don’t want to do anything about it and change, our body becomes weak. The body loses a fight with a mind.
That’s why it hurts so much. Recognizing the real problem that’s disguised into a physical pain will give you the right solution for healing.
Past mistakes and gratitude
“We’re not your mistakes. We’re your choices, your past decisions. You were doing the best you could with the knowledge and experience you had about life then.
We don’t blame you for anything. We want you to know we’ll go away if you let us leave.
Your holding onto us, your “mistakes”, makes you worried and constantly in blame. Don’t hate yourself because of your past. It doesn’t exist anymore, except in your memories. Let us go and you’ll be free.”
If there wasn’t a “bad decision” or “mistake”, you wouldn’t be here now, and working on your self-development.
Imperfect body and gratitude
“I’m imperfect; deal with it. I want you to see the beauty within you. In this life, I’m your lesson.
You have to learn to live with me. Otherwise, you can’t live.
Instead of being hateful toward me, your body, say-Thank you for serving me the best you can.
We, your legs, arms, heart, eyes, brain, stomach, are functioning with the energy you give to us. When your energy is low, we’re manifesting it within you.
When you’re sick or in physical pain, remember us and treat us good. Don’t feed us with garbage of your negative, pessimistic thoughts, and fast food.”
Give to your body healthy food, enough sleep, and fresh air. It’ll become healthier, which is more important than being beautiful.
A healthy body and a healthy mind is the most valuable thing you can have.
This is how you can be grateful for your body.
Why is this practice of gratitude so powerful?
I hope so that, after reading this article and understanding your emotions or situations, you’ll find your way to gratitude. When you can see things in a different way, you’re open to receiving something better.
When you can be grateful through the perspective of the opposite side, you can be healed. You can change what doesn’t feel good for you.
Now you know gratitude is for your wellbeing and not for neglecting or running away from problems. When you say “Thank you” to your body figure as such, you’ll feel relief. You’ll start to notice all the things you were missing before.
You’ll see why it’s important to be grateful especially for the things that seem so hard for you to accept. When you’re able to see the life through the eyes of a hated object, you show how strong and worth you are. And that your life means to you.