CHANGING ROOM TIP
Get Grateful
The day that I decided to focus on what I did have (beautiful children) instead of what I didn’t have (hair) was without doubt the day that my life began to change. It was a spectacular lesson with regards to the art of gratitude and the power that this has. Gratitude gave me the gift of time, a few seconds in which I felt a spiritual hug as a wave of calm momentarily enveloped me from top to toe. In this moment of calm, the chatter in my head began to fade, allowing the gentle whispering from my soul to be heard. It was the first time that I knew that I needed to change ‘me’, not the situation. And I knew that I needed something else to fill my mind and think about. In my nakedness, I had nothing else to follow but my guiding light.
Gratitude is the gateway to your soul, and the answers that you seek.
When we experience personal challenges, emotional turmoil, or adversity, it’s natural to feel upset, frustrated, lost, or hopeless. Our thoughts become tangled, minds confused as we focus on what could have been, what we have lost, or could have had. This results in overwhelming feelings, particularly anxiety and stress. The more attention we give what has gone wrong, the bigger the problem grows in our mind. The more our mind fills with problems, the less space we have for the good stuff.
By changing your focus and practising the art of gratitude, you can give yourself the gift of calm, and time away from anxiety, stress, and fear. In this calm you will feel more relaxed and therefore more able to think clearly. You will be able to find solutions to help you through your challenges. This is my experience, but it is also backed up by research. Dr Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami are well known for their research on gratitude. Through controlled experimentation, they discovered that people who expressed and practised gratitude were more optimistic after just 10 weeks. They also discovered that these people exercised more, and had fewer visits to their doctors.1
Ask yourself right now:
• What do I have in my life that is good?
• Who do I appreciate in my life?
• What are the small things that I am grateful for?
• What can I be grateful for today?
• What do I feel thinking about these things?
You may be a beginner with regards to the art of gratitude but with a little practice, you can increase your happiness dramatically by working through these three levels:
Level 1 – Be a Self-Gratitude Specialist
Start to identify your own gratitude thoughts and record them regularly in a journal. Reflect back and tap into happiness when remembering those special moments. Begin at this level right now, by creating your own gratitude book. Keep it beside your bed, and before you go to sleep every night, write down at least five things that you are grateful for. Maybe you are grateful for a special friend? The flowers in your garden? A day of sunshine? Allow your pen to flow freely. The only rule is no repetition. Find new moments of gratitude every day.
Level 2 – Be a Gratitude Giver
Continue to carry out the practice at level 1, but start to show your gratitude to others through the use of words or writing. Choose to notice greatness in others (spectacular service in a restaurant, for example) and call or send a note to show your appreciation. Make or buy a small card and send it to a friend with a few heartfelt words. Feel the immense joy in making others feel good with genuine words from your heart. Sprinkle some magic in the form of gratitude at every opportunity, and you will not only light up lives, but light up the world.
Level 3 – Be a Gratitude Giant
Having progressed through levels 1 and 2, continue to practise the associated exercises.
Look for and find gifts in any situation. Use these gifts to help you through your personal challenges. A challenge can bring either despair or opportunity. Choose opportunity. The size of the problem does not reflect your ability to come through. Focus strongly on what you can control, not what you can’t. Focus on what you have got, not what you haven’t. You may start to notice that you can lift other people around you with your positive attitude, as you begin to infect others with your sunny disposition.
(A beautiful example of a gratitude giant is motivational speaker Nick Vujicic. Born with Phocomelia, a rare disorder characterised by the absence of arms and legs, Nick faced many mental and physical challenges in his youth. Eventually he found a huge gift within these challenges, and now presents motivational speeches worldwide, to help others find hope and meaning in life. I highly recommend his book, Life Without Limits.)
By rising through these three levels, you too will rise. Gratitude is the gateway to our soul, to our silence, and to our peace. If we think about what makes us happy, we allow positive thoughts into our minds. We create small moments of stillness and calm. In stillness and calm, we develop the ability to hear our hearts and the whispers of our soul. The truth is we always have the answers; we just need to stand still long enough to hear them.
In our nakedness and in our stillness we have to follow our intuition because it’s the only thing that we have. Our intuition is a light guiding the way to our ‘calling’ in life; a gift waiting only to be discovered in our nakedness. Other people may try to help and guide us with their words only to find our mind seemingly impenetrable. But when we’re stripped right back, our wisdom comes from our soul. It speaks louder than the voices of those around us. It doesn’t need to penetrate our mind because it’s already there.
As small children we listened to our ‘inside words’, and lived guided by our intuition. Watching a tiny child play is an incredibly valuable experience. Notice how their soul shines from their eyes as they do what makes them happy: playing with friends, doing things that make them feel good, relishing time outdoors rolling in grass or splashing in muddy puddles. Small children ask ‘why’ until they understand, refuse to do things that they don’t enjoy, and live unashamedly from their hearts. Their soul, so bright, dazzles everyone around them with its presence. They accept nothing less than being truly alive.
As a young child, many years ago, I would visit my grandmother, and on countless occasions she would lovingly pinch my cheek with her soft, warm hand. “You’re rich you are!” she’d say. Years later, following her passing I began to reflect on memories, and these words that she seemed so fond of. What did she mean by rich? As an adult with children of my own, I now know that being rich is about being truly alive, and seeing the world through the eyes of opportunity, possibility and love. It’s about living as who we really are, unashamedly and proud.
Being rich is looking at life through open eyes and recognising that the relationships that you form are your greatest riches, and that your true wealth lies in that which you create.
Only a short time ago, I took my two-year-old nephew to a beautiful beach close by. After spending an hour trying to keep up with him rolling down the sand dunes, I decided it was time to go home. Walking back across the beach, he became captivated by a tiny stream that ran towards the sea. He squatted down beside it throwing tiny pieces of wood, or ‘boats’, into the water before watching them float away. After allowing him a little time to play, I tried encouraging him to start walking back to the car. He simply and very determinedly refused and continued to squat in his tiny bright red wellingtons, toes touching the stream. Two more attempts followed but to no avail, so I took the ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ attitude, to figure out what he found so fascinating. Crouching beside him, I sat in stillness (just as he was) and allowed my gaze to wander to the water. It wasn’t long at all before I joined Jack in his world and became completely transfixed not only by the