Love Your Mind Archives

Today I’d like to share with you a simple, yet profound, quote from Marcus Aurelius. For me, it sums up why I’m sharing the Miracle of Gratitude journey with you:

“The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”

I remember a dear friend, about a decade ago, asking me how on earth she could shift her thoughts from negative to positive, when she had spent a lifetime training herself to think about the bad bits.

Much of my work over the past ten years has been invested in finding simple, practical, highly effective answers to her question. It’s one of the reasons I decided to spend this year creating and sharing The Miracle Of Gratitude.

The quality and ‘tone’ of our thoughts has a profound impact on our experience of life.

Telling your Monkey Mind to stop thinking thoughts that make you feel miserable doesn’t work.

Your mind can’t process a ‘negative’.

What do I mean?

I mean that if you shout at a child, “Don’t run!” it first has to imagine ‘running’ and then the ‘not’, by which time the accident has probably happened. If you tell them, “Don’t fall over!” then it first has to imagine falling over, and you can guess the rest. Instead of shouting, “Don’t run!” you could try “Walk!” Instead of “Don’t fall!” how about “Stay safe!”? Can you sense the difference it makes?

Tell your Monkey Mind, “Don’t think negative thoughts!” and it first has to imagine the “negative thoughts” bit and… you guessed it… it never gets round to processing the “don’t“!

One of the reasons why The Miracle Of Gratitude can be so powerful is because it gives you something to fill the vacuum; it gives you a structured training course for your mind, to help it gently retune from whatever its old radio station was to one that more often thinks of positive, happy, uplifting and grateful things.

It becomes like a ‘magic wand’ to help you turn your thoughts around, if they’re heading in a direction that you no longer want.

You’re not trying to ‘banish’ the sad or angry thoughts. In fact, that would just make them stronger, as we beat ourselves up for ‘daring’ to think an unhappy or unkind thought. As Carl Jung reminds us: “What you resist persists.” Give your energy – your attention – to a thought that you don’t ‘want’ and you are feeding that thought, allowing it to grow and continue. Instead, we’re simply looking to tip the balance in favour of the happy and more empowering ones, one day at a time; one thought at a time; no ‘forcing’; no ‘have to’; no ‘getting rid’; simply choosing to play with gratitude exercises and projects, one day at a time.

And what better way to do it than to tune yourself in to gratitude?

For those of you who are already joining in with The Miracle of Gratitude, I’d love to hear how you’re getting on. Perhaps you could share, via the comments box, how the daily practices have been impacting your life? Which gratitude project are you playing with? Are you still taking a moment to experience Gratitude Minutes? Do you have any insights? Experiences? Questions? Answers?

Not joined in yet? What are your favourite techniques for turning your thoughts around?

And if you haven’t had a chance to join in yet, here’s where to find out more about how to register today: www.MiracleOfGratitude.com

Namaste,

When we spend time complaining about what’s going wrong, what others are or aren’t doing and how much of what we want we don’t have / how much we don’t want what we have, guess what happens?
We are programming our minds to focus on more of that.

It’s as though we’re tuning a radio station to play us a ‘life soundtrack’ of complaining, ‘don’t want’ and ‘don’t like’.

Day 13 - The Miracle Of Gratitude — From Day 13 of The Miracle Of Gratitude

Fortunately there’s a really simple solution.
Instead of complaining about what’s bad / wrong / what we don’t have, focus on what’s going well, what we do have, what we do like and we’ll be waving a magic wand, setting the filters in our brain to spot more of that.
When we do this, it’s as though a miracle occurs:

“Whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will increase in your life.”~ Sanaya Roman

It feels like the things we appreciate are growing, because we’re giving them more of our ‘head space’. But it also physically occurs too, because we’re giving our mind the instruction to notice and to create chance for more of what we appreciate to ‘arrive’. We’re more likely to spot the open doors and opportunities that allow more of it into our experience of live. We’re more likely to say the things and take the actions that bring what we appreciate into our world.

The simple act of saying thank you for what we have – of appreciating and feeling good about how our life is – shifts our radar and retunes that radio station.
Each time you catch yourself complaining, how about pausing for a moment and asking yourself, “What could I choose to feel grateful for, in this moment?”
There will always be something.

This is one of the many reasons why your daily ‘gratitude minutes’ are so incredibly important – and potentially life-changing. They are training your mind to consistently allow more of what you feel grateful for into your experience of life.

Surely that’s worth a minute a day of your time?

Have you joined in with The Miracle Of Gratitude yet?

We’re spending a few minutes, each day, focusing on gratitude to experiment with how it changes our lives and perhaps even the world.

Joining in is free:

Get free daily emails and inspiration: The Miracle Of Gratitude

and

Chat and connect with others on Facebook: The Miracle Of Gratitude

See you there!

Namaste,
Clare

Fed Up Of Thinking Negative Thoughts? How To Use Gratitude As A Magic Wand For Positive Thinking (In Less Than A Minute A Day!)

The quality and ‘tone’ of our thoughts has a profound impact on our experience of life.

Is It Time To Retune Your Inner Radio To Gratitude?