A GOLDEN KEY TO HAPPINESS IS TO CHOOSE TO LIVE WITH AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
When you choose to make gratitude your daily practice and attitude, every day will be an adventure in grace, goodness and joyful well being.
SPIRITUAL SOUP KITCHEN Section: Stories by Chinmayan about the essential necessities of the spiritual path to nurture and nourish your heart, mind and spirit.
THE DAWNING LIGHT —Daily Journal of Positive Thought Worth Reading
Volume 8, Issue # 964 SSK Section # 167 for Saturday, May 25, 2024
All images in this issue courtesy of Pixabay
The Attitude of Gratitude Is The Golden Key To Happiness and Well Being
“TIDE OF LOVE”
“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment and unhappiness with life goes out and the tide of LOVE rushes in”
-Kristin Armstrong
Every morning when I wake up, I immediately check in with myself while I am still lying under the warm covers to see what my attitude is. If I am not in a state of cheerful gratitude, I start changing my thoughts into thankful ones.
I know from long experience to make this check and change because attitude is everything and will determine the flow and quality of the day ahead.
I immediately begin giving thanks to the divine for all the good things, great and small, that are in my life. I give thanks for waking up in this body with a whole new day of amazing potential and opportunities ahead.
As my wise grandmother often said, “I give thanks for everyday when I wake up above ground, for still being here for another day to love life and all of you.”
I have consciously created the life affirming habit of counting my blessings, giving thanks for all my good, and maintaining a grateful attitude because I know for absolute certain that gratitude is the golden key to happiness and well being.
The more grateful I am for all the good in my life, the more good flows into my life to be grateful for.
I am happy because of my consistent attitude of gratitude.
I choose to be grateful for what I have, rather than focusing on things I don’t have or complaining about anything in my life. I do not allow myself to make myself miserable over things I would like to have, but do not have yet.
Gratitude transforms my own view of things and shifts my attitude from being unhappy about my life and challenging situations, to being thankful for the truly important things…
such as having good health, a home that is just right, good food, beautiful days and enough money to get by….
the love of my children and the freedom to use my days perusing my spiritual path and my writing as my service to the world.
It is very easy to take the big blessings of our lives for granted when they are essential parts of our daily reality.
Original revelation and calligraphy by Chinmayan
I am very aware of this trap, so I take extra care to not to take anything, especially the major blessings, in my life for granted.
After all, the real truth is that everything we have, even our bodies, even our closest love relationships is temporary and is part of our lives now, but not forever.
For me, constantly reminding myself of this truth is a major motivation to appreciate and be grateful for everything and everyone in my life.
This taking things for granted trap can sneak up on us, and then we lose touch with the preciousness of our blessings…and fall into a rut of simply not really appreciating what we have. Our hearts close and our joy grows smaller and smaller until we have no joy at all.
Practicing being grateful on purpose is the very source spring of our ever surging happiness, joy, tranquil satisfaction and sense of well being.
I am grateful for the close friendship that I share with Ani, who chooses to be on this journey through life and spiritual development with me in our everyday relationship of loving harmony.
I also make sure to include the new things that come into my life in my daily practice of gratitude.
Through this practice, my heart stays open and I am much more able to share love, feel loving, be kind and considerate and be a force of loving goodness in this world!
“The more you give thanks for all the good in your life, the more LOVE and grace you will have flowing into your life…”
—Yeshe Gyamtso
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.”
—Melody Beattie
Practicing gratitude every day has completely transformed my life and created a well spring of such certainty in the flow of goodness and blessings, that I am now protected from falling back into being prey to my own mind’s old negative habits of being critical and finding fault with everything.
“Be thankful for what you have.
Your life, no matter how bad you think it is,
Is someone else’s fairy tale”
—Wale Ayeni
I have been building a firewall of gratitude for so many years now, that the moment I start to feel the old misery making attitude trying to take over, I immediately start counting my blessings which become so many when I start looking for them that the dark clouds are dispelled and I return to living in the light with a blue sky, sunny day point of view.
“Better to lose count while counting your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles.”
—Matthieu D. Babcock
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Original Poetry and Calligraphy by Chinmayan
A WONDERFULLY ROUSING and UPBEAT SONG FOR YOU that will make you want to dance in grateful ecstasy!
“THE CALLING” by Fat Rat and Laura Brehm
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE WITH US TODAY!
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“Your greatest service to humanity is to attain your own Self Realization!” Ramana Maharshi
“When God is the center and focus of my life, everything else falls into it’s rightful place.”
—Chinmayan
While I am grateful, regretfully, 'blue skies and sunny days' do not replace a loving companion.