Balanced Living

Finding balance in everyday life

  • May
    13
    “Gratitude brings laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you” Expressing gratitude for life’s blessings is likely to elevate positive feelings.  Grateful thinking reminds you of life’s positive experiences and situations.  It prevents you from taking your life for granted.  Recognizing what you are thankful for and appreciate can also be a coping strategy to positively reinterpret problematic life experiences. Making time on a daily basis to stop for a moment to appreciate and accept your experiences of life for what they are have several benefits: 1)      You may feel more connected to nature; 2)      You may see what is really good about your life and become increasingly aware of the display of beauty around you; 3)      You may increase and sustain positive emotions. Research has shown that practicing grateful thinking on a regular basis can enhance positive feelings and other measures of well-being.  The more you express gratitude the more likely you will feel better both emotionally and physically.  Even practicing gratitude once a week can manifest a sense of well-being. Projects: Recognize self-gratitude.  Visualize and write about your “best possible self”.  Writing has the advantages of providing opportunity to learn about yourself, improve self-regulation by identifying your priorities, and increasing awareness of your motivations and values. Photo project.  The camera is a great way to capture things, as-well-as emotions, and remind yourself of the many things you are grateful for.  The project can be done for one week, two months or even one year.  Take a daily photo and give it a caption to identify specifically what you appreciate about the picture.  You will start to notice things that you may have missed if you had not taken the time to be more aware. National I-AM-Thankful postcard project.  (http://www.iamthankful.com/postcards). You can submit a postcard in honor of people, places, things or circumstances.  Your creation will be displayed on the web to send a ripple of gratitude through the universe and to inspire others.

    “Gratitude brings laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you”

    Expressing gratitude for life’s blessings is likely to elevate positive feelings.  Grateful thinking reminds you of life’s positive experiences and situations.  It prevents you from taking your life for granted.  Recognizing what you are thankful for and appreciate can also be a coping strategy to positively reinterpret problematic life experiences.

    Making time on a daily basis to stop for a moment to appreciate and accept your experiences of life for what they are have several benefits:

    1)      You may feel more connected to nature;

    2)      You may see what is really good about your life and become increasingly aware of the display of beauty around you;

    3)      You may increase and sustain positive emotions.

    Research has shown that practicing grateful thinking on a regular basis can enhance positive feelings and other measures of well-being.  The more you express gratitude the more likely you will feel better both emotionally and physically.  Even practicing gratitude once a week can manifest a sense of well-being.

    Projects:

    Recognize self-gratitude.  Visualize and write about your “best possible self”.  Writing has the advantages of providing opportunity to learn about yourself, improve self-regulation by identifying your priorities, and increasing awareness of your motivations and values.

    Photo project.  The camera is a great way to capture things, as-well-as emotions, and remind yourself of the many things you are grateful for.  The project can be done for one week, two months or even one year.  Take a daily photo and give it a caption to identify specifically what you appreciate about the picture.  You will start to notice things that you may have missed if you had not taken the time to be more aware.

    National I-AM-Thankful postcard project.  (http://www.iamthankful.com/postcards).
    You can submit a postcard in honor of people, places, things or circumstances.  Your creation will be displayed on the web to send a ripple of gratitude through the universe and to inspire others.

  • August
    4

    100 Best Blogs on Inspiring Healthy Joyful Living

  • June
    6

    Gratitude

    Gratitude is a gift you give yourself, no matter what it is that you are grateful for. 

    What are you grateful for? What in your life do you appreciate? Stop for a moment and bring to mind something that you are truly grateful for, that you deeply appreciate. As you are thinking of this, notice how you feel. Notice the smile that is beginning to turn up the corners of your mouth. Notice how your body relaxes and opens up. Notice how happy you feel. How would your life be different if you experienced gratitude more of the time? 

    Gratitude is about having an awareness of and appreciation for the good things in your life and not taking them for granted. It is about acknowledging the kindness of others. As such, it helps us recognize that we are not solitary creatures and that others have helped and supported us along the way.

    Gratitude is an important character strength that is strongly correlated with happiness. It is a very positive emotion; after all it is impossible to feel bad, angry, or depressed while simultaneously feeling genuine gratitude. Gratitude trumps all negative emotions and replaces them with a feeling of joy and happiness. Every time you express your feelings of gratitude, you amplify and stabilize a sense of joy in your heart.

    If your gratitude is for others, your appreciation is a gift to them, especially when you let them know it. In the true spirit of a gift, appreciation is freely given without expectation of anything in return. However, your return is always a given - simply by how you feel. Gratitude feels good. Gratitude is a feeling, a focus, an experience. It is not necessarily a gift you can wrap up and put a bow on, although you can wrap up and put a bow on something that is an expression of your gratitude.  Or you can write a thank you note, or simply tell someone what you appreciate about them.

    Gratitude is a recognition and a deeply felt appreciation for the gifts you have been given. Gifts may be in the form of innate gifts, such as special abilities and talents - a gift of singing, a mechanical aptitude, a genius for poetry, a faculty for remembering names, an athletic talent, or the ability to see an image and create it in sculpture.

     

    What are yours? Don’t be shy, we all have them.