The Happiness Magnet

 

Do you feel happy where you are? If you’re not feeling happy with your life, something is missing.

Of all the traits I’ve observed in people living a quality life, gratitude consistently rises to the top. However, I’ve learned lately that living in gratefulness is different than being grateful.

Gratitude is transactional — a response to something. It is very specific. Every day I write in my journal the things I’m grateful for.

When you feel life is good and things are going your way, you get a sense of gratitude. How about when it’s not going your way? Are you not grateful all of a sudden?

It seems that, for most of us, gratitude is highly conditional and based on circumstances. It is transitory and transactional.

We should be thinking of gratitude as an approach to life, much like mindfulness is an approach to life. Grateful living should be a set of habits and practices that lead us live more gratefully. Think of gratefulness as a proactive, kind of like gratitude in advance.

So when we wake up in the morning, we should be waking up gratefully. Nothing has happened that you can express gratitude for, yet we are grateful for just being here and able to put our two feet on the floor and live life.

Grateful living is based on the idea that life is a gift. Think of it as unconditional gratitude.

Living in gratitude also has health benefits. When you live gratefully, you live with less stress. Stress causes inflammation in the body that leads to disease. Among other health benefits, studies have shown that living in gratefulness benefits the immune system and heart.

Your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships is among the personal benefits or “emotional intelligence” that living gratefully provides.

The spiritual benefit is a sense of well being and feeling joy, knowing that happiness does not depend on what happens to us. Gratefulness is the gratitude that does not depend on getting something.

In essence, when you live gratefully, you reinforce the relationships around you. They become deeper, more gratifying and generous. We become more appreciative and respectful of people.

The manner in which you participate in society changes when you live in a state of gratefulness. You don’t come from a place of scarcity or greediness or a need for comparisons or competition.

As we age, we tend to have a more organic, natural increase in our gratitude for life. The fleeting nature of our gift of life and the idea that life is too short makes people savor it more as they get older.

Go out and experiment today by giving compliments you’ve never given before. When we express gratitude out loud to others, it makes a difference in us as well.

Blow out gratitude to people. It comes back to us. It’s a happiness magnet.