In the past few years I’ve been learning to give thanks not just for the wonderful, joyful things that happen, but also for the challenges and struggles.

Difficult situations and relationships have turned out to be such gifts to me. They have taught me wisdom and insight, and they’ve provided opportunities for me to live more authentically from a heart-space; a place of expansion rather than contraction. When I view life’s challenges from that perspective, I find myself deeply grateful. 

Gratitude is the Foundation for Our Lives

All philosophical and religious traditions teach that gratitude is the foundation for our lives. Remember, gratitude is an attitude! We can choose it. We can either moan and groan over what’s happened and stay in that negative place, a place of contraction and fear and victimhood—or we can feel the pain and then move on. Furthermore, we can choose to find something in each situation for which to give thanks. Often it’s only afterward that we realize a certain situation or relationship brought huge opportunities for growth and healing. That realization puts us in a place of expansion and enables us to harvest the wisdom we could glean from those situations. 

I have a challenge for you in the next week: Take the most difficult situation/relationship/happening you’ve faced in the past year and find just one thing that the situation has gifted you with. Then be grateful for that one thing. 

Express Your Gratitude

I know that what I’m encouraging you to do may not be easy. You may have dealt with devastating situations and/or relationships/losses in the past year. Yet I encourage you to do it anyway.

Find something for which to give thanks—and find a way to express your gratitude, whether to yourself, or to Source, or to another person.  Take time to have the attitude of gratitude. 

Then notice how it shifts everything. Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you that living from that space will change your life for the better!

With love and gratitude, 

Mary  

P.S. If any of this resonates for you, I have a couple of client spots open for doing this work.  Please check out my individual sessions page, or contact me.