I recently watched a video on Facebook of Russell Brand talking about the power of gratitude and I can’t get it out of my head.
It was impactful, it made me think. When was the last time I was grateful?
I have been happy and excited recently: I have achieved a number of personal goals, including this blog, but I haven’t been very grateful.
I hadn’t thought about gratitude; only what I needed to do, as if on remote control; keep slogging on: focus on my goals, keep adding content on social media, finish editing my book, cooking dinner, making sure the kids get to school on time etc.
Honestly, I have been struggling with the kids, set-backs in my personal life and arguing with my husband, I hadn’t been very thankful about that and of course I had experienced anger and frustration when dealing with daily challenges.
I like what Russell said, especially, because at the end, he asked us to write down three things we are grateful for. Writing, anything that gets me writing something down already has me hooked and it made me think, what am I actually grateful for? It gave me some perspective: I can have set backs, out right disappointments but in the grand scheme of things I have a hell of a lot to be grateful for, the writer in me could write a whole list if you let me…
The key message I got from his video was this:
Instead of focusing on one bad thing, think about everything you have to be grateful for, as Russell said so eloquently:
“Principal of gratitude is an important one, we can control our consciousness through attention and intention, if we attend to the things we’re grateful for our physical heath even in situations and particularly in situations when things aren’t going our way, that is when we must be grateful” …therefore, acting with intention.
This morning when I got up, I had a song in my head that I needed to play. I had to cook food for the family dinner so I decided to continue listening to more songs. Each song I chose from a random playlist was optimistic and uplifting and soon I found myself singing and humming around the kitchen.
My cousin even commented on how happy I was when she came into the kitchen, but I had woken up the same way as I had every morning. Nothing particularly bad or good had happened to me, but the music I had chosen and had continued to choose, had created this effect in me.
Now, I know that music has that power. I utilise sad songs that affect me deeply to write heart wrenching dialogue in my stories and I know that when I go to a party or a night club pumping tunes make me want to dance or sing, but I hadn’t thought about how songs in general affected me day to day when I am completing household tasks; the mundane and boring stuff…
As I thought about this, my mind returned back to what Russell had been saying about gratitude. Listening to upbeat songs made me happy, made me fill good to be alive, even though 30 minutes earlier I had been shouting and hurrying my child along because he was late for school. Instead of focusing on the one thing that is bad or in this instances the frustrations I had faced that morning, I had listened to music, that had lifted my mood and made me feel optimistic and happy. The bad moment had been forgotten and it was easy to think of three things I am grateful for:
I am thankful for music that makes my mood happy.
I am thankful for the good food that I can cook and tastes delicious when I eat it
I am thankful that my children have gone to school and my husband to work so I have time to myself to write this blog post and free my artistic expression.
Instead of focusing on the one thing that is bad or in this instance the frustration I had faced that morning, I had listened to music, that had lifted my mood and I was able to turn those negative thoughts into thankful statements.
I did a quick bit of research and found this quote from a Harvard researcher Shawn Achor: “Something as simple as writing down three things you’re grateful for every day for 21 days in a row significantly increases your level of optimism, and it holds for the next six months. The research is amazing.”
If I think back to my blog post a few weeks back titled Write and Try – Dr. Gail Matthews found that “people were 42% more likely to achieve their dreams and goals if they wrote them down on a regular basis.”
Therefore, perhaps, if people wrote down three things they were grateful for every day, then, you could increase your level of optimism by 42%! Just a thought…
Your mind is a powerful tool, it manifests what your thoughts project. The written word is powerful in embedding those thoughts.
It is even relevant to the workshop I attended with Lisa Bowen, because she went a step further, not taking a bad situation but a bad fear and turning it into a positive affirmation.
How would it feel to let go of the negativity, fear, doubt, that bad moment in the past, guilt, the shame holding you back and instead connect with those things that make you truly grateful. Even in those negative situation; there are moments to be grateful, strength of mind, your resilience, self-belief. Think of those things that give you a sense of peace, contentment, joy.
Listen to what your heart is saying, write it down, revisit it, add to it and embrace it.
http://www.facebook.com/RussellBrand/videos/289620891850892/
Some additional reading on the subject…