Get Happier with an Attitude of Gratitude

Say thank you to the Universe and get one in return

It’s easy to forget about gratitude when you’re trying to make your life happier.  Obviously you’re not as happy as you’d like to be, something is missing there, so why exactly should you be grateful?  You’ll be grateful after you’ve found happiness, when there’s actually something to be grateful for.  Ah, but there’s so much to be grateful for right now and when you’re focused on all the things that are lacking in your life, it’s easy to overlook all these things.  The problem with this is that when you’re focused on all the lack in your life it brings up negative emotions for you.  And negative emotions cause you to make poor choices in your life and ultimately not get the happiness you want.  So, it’s a vicious cycle.  Your focus on the negative just brings more negativity.  The great thing about this is that the flip side is also true.  Your focus on the positive is going to bring more positivity into your life and positivity equals happiness.  Hooray!  What’s the best way to focus on the positive?  Yep, you guessed it, gratitude!

What’s so great about gratitude?

Expressing gratitude is the equivalent of expressing love.  When you’re grateful to someone for, say, giving you a gift, you’re really saying that you love that person, because the gift and the giving of it is an expression of themselves.  When you’re grateful for the gifts you’ve gotten in your life, you’re expressing love to a higher power, whether that be God, Source, the Universe, or something else for you.  And this higher power expresses itself through the existence of you, so you’re really expressing love to yourself!  Since there’s no higher frequency than that of love, doesn’t it stand to reason that you should be expressing gratitude each and every day?  For yourself, your family, your friends, your pets, your home, your job, your car, everything!  When you give love, you get love in return.  When you express gratitude for even the things in your life that you’re not entirely happy with, you raise your energy frequency to the highest level and you’re then able to receive on that level, as well.  If you’re slogging through your days feeling like the world is against you and you have nothing to be grateful for, your frequency is so low that you can’t possibly receive anything good.  It’s like tuning your radio to 95.7 and expecting to hear the music played on 104.3.  What you focus on, you create more of.  Focus on being grateful for all of the things in your life, even the lessons, and you’ll create more happiness for yourself.

Comparison and entitlement

We live in a society (I’m talking about Americans here) where we expect things to be perfect.  We feel entitled to happiness and when we don’t have it our inner tantrum-throwing child kicks into high gear.  We determine that we don’t have complete happiness by comparing ourselves to others and coming up short.  This is especially true of single people who compare ourselves to marrieds.  Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of comments like, “What do I do about money?  I don’t have what they have because I don’t have two incomes,” and “I don’t have anyone to share my day with because I’m single.”  Okay, so you don’t have as much money as someone who’s married.  And you don’t have someone to complain about your day to.  Single people spend so much time trying to have everything that married people have and when we don’t, we feel like we’ve been dealt a cruel hand.  You’re not going to have everything that married people have and you’re not entitled to it, either.  Know what this means?  You’re not going to have screaming matches in the middle of the night.  You’re not going to be cheated on or lied to.  You’re not going to have to put up with someone else’s negative attitude.  You’re not going to have to deal with in-laws.  The list goes on and on.  Instead of focusing on what you don’t have that other (married) people have, focus on what you DO have – a clean, quiet home, ultimate control over your finances, the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want.  When you focus on what you don’t have that someone who’s married does have, you’ll certainly come up with some things, but when you focus on what you do have you’ll come up with even more.  Now, that’s something to be grateful for!

Express your gratitude

It’s easy to express your gratitude to someone else.  It’s as easy as thanking them for something they’ve done for you or doing something for them in return.  You can wave at someone when they let you in on the highway or make a donation to someone in need.  But how do you express gratitude for your own life?  The easiest way is via a gratitude journal.  I keep one and each day before bed I write five things that I was grateful for that day.  Some days are harder than others, but I can always come up with five and some days the list goes on and on.  If journaling isn’t your thing, that’s okay, you can do it in your head, too.  When you’re lying in bed at the end of the day, count your blessings before you drift off to sleep, even the little things.  You can express gratitude to yourself and for your life in other ways, too.  Give of yourself or your money if you’re able to.  Look around at the things you have and thank the Universe for bringing them into your life.  Take care of your body through healthy eating and exercise so that it will take care of you.  Raise yourself up to the frequency of giving and receiving love.

Gratitude = happiness

When you raise your frequency up to the highest level by expressing your gratitude to others, the Universe, and yourself, you have no choice but to be happy.  You can’t exist at this level without feeling happiness.  You know how it’s said that the best way to feel good is to do something good for someone else?  It’s because when you do this you’re showing gratitude to that person for accepting your help, gratitude to the Universe for making it so that you were able to do this thing, and gratitude to yourself for doing it.  It’s a win-win-win in the gratitude department.  You can also achieve this level of happiness just by being grateful for all that you have and all that you are, and by treating and taking care of yourself well.  This shows the Universe that you’re aligned with its highest frequency and the Universe will respond in turn by bringing you more happiness.  Like attracts like.  If you don’t believe me, try it!