Gratitude for YOU!

I want to thank you for being here, listening to my blog that I've been putting out every week. If you missed it last week in the write up, it's been a year. Yes, last week was the 52nd blog. So, this week is the start of a new year, and I want to thank you again for being here.

In the spirit of gratitude, and that fact that Thanksgiving's next week, I want to focus this week on what we're thankful for. I've talked about gratitude a lot in the past, but let me point out again that if you're feeling anxious, or fearful, or you've got some hang ups about the future, take time every day, sit down, and write down five things that you're grateful for.

By the way, this is not my idea. I did a blog post last year on this, and Zig Ziglar is the person I learned this strategy from. In one of his stories, he asked this woman who was really struggling with her job to think about everything that she was thankful for with her job.  She came back a couple months later, after he told her to write down what she's thankful for every day, and said, "Wow! You won't believe how the people down at work have changed." Zig just smiled, because he knew it was not the people at work, but it was her that had changed. She had shifted her energy through gratitude.

This also happened with another client of mine recently. He was feeling a lot of fear and anxiety about the situation he was in, and I said, "Look, just sit down every day, and write down what you're grateful for." To his credit, he took my advice, and he's been doing it every day. I talked to him last week, and I said, "How are you feeling doing gratitude?" He's said, "I feel like my whole energy has shifted, and I'm in an entirely new place."

If that's you right now, and you're feeling a little anxiety, a little fear for situations you're in,  your future, your job, or whatever, just remember to be grateful for where you're at, what you have, even to the point of saying "I'm grateful to have eyes that see, and ears that hear, and a body that functions", at the very basic level. At a bigger level, let's also, in the spirit of thanksgiving:

1. Be grateful fo our connection to our Creator, if that language works for you, or whatever you sense is the place or the source from which all things come. Be thankful that life has been given to your spirit, and that you're here right now, this day. 
2. Be grateful for the mind that you've been given, to really experience this world. Not everybody has a perfect mind that can absorb everything that's going on. So, be grateful for that!
3. Be grateful for your physical body. Whatever state it's in, be grateful for where it is right now, and be grateful for where it's going, and the awesome vessel that it is that carries you through this lifetime.
4. Be grateful for your emotions, good and bad, because the bad ones we can learn from, and the good ones we certainly want to soak up.
5. Be grateful for your relationships with your significant other, with your family, with your extended family, your community, your country, and the world. All these relationships that you have with people. At the end of the day, life is really about relationships, and evolving your spirit. Lastly, be grateful for your relationship to your Creator.
6. Be grateful for the livelihood that you have, your vocation.
7. Be grateful for the ability to have an avocation, something that you're excited about contributing to.
8. Be grateful for the things that you have in life that make life comfortable for you. Most people listening to this blog have a lot of first world problems. So be grateful that you don't have third world problems. Be grateful that you have a roof over your head, and you have a car to drive, and you have heating, cooling, and refrigeration, and food on the table, and all those kinds of great things that we have during this time of thanksgiving.

I trust that this post, and the year past, has been wonderful for you. I trust you have gained a lot of insights from things I've been sharing, and stick around, because next year we have a lot more stuff coming that I trust going to enjoy. Thanks for being here again. Talk to you next week!