Gratitude - your path to a happier you

Start small but detailed, be consistent and be super kind to yourself. Gratitude isn’t about judgement upon yourself, but more of a re-programming of the mind to automatically go to a happier place.

For me, once I got started and realised the above, something clicked. One day, I was walking in the freezing rain to the doctors where I’d normally drive to; and instead of moaning about the cold, my mind automatically went to feeling gratitude that I had the health and ability to walk there and the service actually available to me. This was a ping moment, as it really was automatic. I didn’t force it or tell myself off. It was just there. I realised that by consistently thinking about small things that I had gratitude for, my mind, along with the associated feelings just went straight to that place.

Okay, so thinking of things to have gratitude for can be hard. Not because there aren’t lots of things there, but it’s a bit like when you’re sitting in one of those corporate type meetings and you are asked to tell the group something interesting about yourself. All of a sudden your mind goes completely blank and you convince yourself that you are the most uninteresting person the world has ever known. Because of this (unpleasant) feeling, it can be something we avoid even starting. 

So here’s some help to begin. Let's break things down a bit, and remember to try to think about the detail wherever you can:

The feel of the sun or breeze on your face, or the cosiness of being somewhere warm inside with a nice cup of tea when it’s cold or raining.

Being outside, hearing the birds singing, maybe seeing trees in blossom, or bulbs starting to bloom.  

The things that make you happy about your home. Maybe you have a favourite place to sit, looking at a plant you love or it might just be the feeling of calm when you’ve cleaned up.

Snuggling up with your pet to watch your favourite series or just having your family around you (doing normal things, it doesn’t have to be special).

Who are the people in your life that help you to feel happy? It can be friends, family, colleagues. 

What exactly about today has made you feel gratitude towards someone. 

Were you able to offload to a colleague at work? Could you call a family member about something you were unsure of? 

Did your little one say something that made you smile? 

Maybe your other half made you a cuppa or made you belly laugh about something. 

Even when nothing in particular has happened, do you have someone there that you could call on if needed? 

For someone feeling lonely, a simple smile or chat with a stranger can be heartening. 

We all lead very different lives, so our things to feel gratitude for will always vary.

When we are well, we often take our health for granted. It’s normally only when we are, or have been unwell that we begin to take notice. 

When well, spending the time to feel gratitude for health can flip your thinking on things like exercise and the things we eat. How do you feel after exercising for example? 

Think about waking up to a new day and having new opportunities to move your body. Having the ability to fight off things like colds and how we can nourish our bodies to feel better. Being able to store our precious memories in our minds and plan for new experiences. Our health isn’t just physical and the things we do (like practicing gratitude) to nourish our minds can also be celebrated.  

These are just a few examples to help get you started in the right gratitude mindset. You can just spend some time each day thinking about things you have gratitude for in your mind, or write them down if you find that this helps. We have some beautiful personalised notebooks available for just this.

Remember that, as with all things mindful, the most important thing is to begin gratitude without judgement. There are no “shoulds” here. When you look at the examples above, it’s easy to see how regularly practicing gratitude can lead on to feelings of happiness and being present in the moment, as you gradually reprogram your mind to naturally find the joy in the small things around you, rather than just the large happy events that happen in your life. If you’re having a particularly rubbish day, it’s totally fine if the only thing you have gratitude for is that “tomorrow is a new day!” 

Most of us at some point in our lives go through something traumatic. These events are normally things that you never really get over as such; however your life slowly re-shapes itself around what has happened and in time, you learn to live with a slightly new version of you.

Gratitude when you are in pure survival mode, is most likely to be the last thing on your mind. However, in the years that follow, you may find the ability to look back and see the positive things that have since happened; having lived through these traumatic times, that perhaps would not have otherwise come to pass. Some examples might be:

• Having had a difficult childhood, but recognising that you parent your own children with so much more love, protection and patience because of your experience.
• Having gratitude for your absolute true friends are who supported you through an awful time.
• Recognising that you are on your current path, only because of something unexpected that changed; that at the time felt like your world had fallen apart.

It of course doesn’t mean that you are “happy” that these things happened. It’s instead recognising an unexpected strength that you have unwillingly gained due to these events, to become the amazing person that you are today.

Let’s not forget this! When you have established things you have gratitude for, if they involve another person, then if you feel able; tell them. It will strengthen your relationship and make you both feel happy. They may even be inspired to do the same, spreading a little ripple of happiness out into the world.