Say thank you until you mean it.

Here is my second post and I am excited.  Thanks for all the positive feedback.

In my life, I like to put gentle reminders to stay positive where I see them often.  I put one right by the computer monitor that I look at hundreds of times a day that simply says, "Drop the negativity and pick up the positive."  This was made by one of my students.  I had my students make cards like these and place them where they will see them often.   Many share these with their families. 

One student said he did not realize how negative some people were until he started to practice gratitude. I have another friend who puts his gratitude list on his refrigerator, so he sees it every time he goes to get something to eat. When I was hanging out with and went to his refrigerator, it really made me feel good when I saw that I was on his gratitude list.

Here is one of the inspirational reminders a friend gave me that is taped to my mirror. I see it every morning and it helps me start my day off right.

“Say thank you until you mean it.  Be thankful for everyone and everything sent your way.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order and confusion into clarity.  It turns a meal into a feast, a house into a home and a stranger into a friend.  It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into opportunities to grow.

It also turns existence into a real life and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of the past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Gratitude makes things right. Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude’s power. We can start with who we are and what we have today, apply gratitude, make a list and let this powerful spiritual tool work its magic. But, it is not magic; it has been shown to work, if you do the work. Say thank you until you mean it. If you say it long enough, you may even believe it."

Every person I know who has tried making a daily gratitude list of at least 5 things and stuck with it for at least two weeks with a willing attitude has experienced tremendous rewards.  You may make the list on paper, create a word document use your iphone.  There are even apps that make this easy.  For me, a written list is more powerful than a mental list. 

Also, I will share a quote on some of these posts.  Here is a great quote from a good friend:

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it"- William Arthur Ward

So, try to express some authentic gratitude to someone in your life today and add them to your gratitude list.