Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~ Melody Beattie

Another way to describe this thought is in the poem from the 1940 edition of The Rotarian entitled The Optimist:

“Life handed him a lemon,
As Life sometimes will do.
His friends looked on in pity,
Assuming he was through.
They came upon him later,
Reclining in the shade
In calm contentment, drinking
A glass of lemonade.”

It is interesting how many coaches, motivational speakers, historical personalities and the like include GRATITUDE in their life lessons:

• Attitude of Gratitude ~ Brian Tracy
• When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. ~ Anthony Robbins
• Gratitude, Gifts and Gains ~ Christine Kane
• TGIF – Trust Gratitude Inspiration Friday ~ Brené Brown

One of my past coaches insisted I spend at least five minutes each night before bed listing five things for which I am grateful.

Why do you think so much emphasis is placed on being grateful?

Brain Adams, author of How to Succeed says, “Like attracts like. Whatever the conscious mind thinks and believes, the subconscious identically creates.”

If your focus is on negative things then everything in your life will follow that same train of thought. Contrast that with – positive thinking creates positive happenings.

Why not start a habit today concentrating on the positives in your life? Create or practice gratitude by training your consciousness and heightening your awareness toward all the things to be grateful for throughout the day. By doing this, you will find yourself focusing on life’s goodness and giving thanks for it.

Ever since I established this practice, my days have shifted in a profound way.

I imagine myself carrying a container and looking for blessings ~ dropping them into my container one by one. At the day’s end, I have accumulated a thankful thoughts collection to add to my gratitude list.

As you become more sensitive to things you are grateful for, your heart and mind opens to more and more of the same. There are several studies (here and here) speaking of the effect gratitude has on the brain. People who focus on and are grateful for the positives in their lives, exercise more, sleep better and are happier. Who doesn’t want that?!

You can express gratitude for something as small as a flower you passed along the way, a beautiful cloud catching your gaze while waiting at a traffic light, a smile from a stranger, a child’s laugh, eating clean, reporting in, a loving pet. Your gratitude practice can include ordering a perfect P2 restaurant meal; not taking a bite of the cookies, or cookie dough you made for your daughter’s kindergarten class, etc. etc.

Gratitude is about perception. It’s a state of mind where you are open, receptive, and conscious of everything during each moment of your day.

For example, let’s say you went to social event and you binged.

Instead of beating yourself up, put yourself in a gratitude state of mind. Be grateful for the opportunity to learn more about you and more about how to handle a similar situation next time. What you will do different? For example:

• I will pre-plan before the event.
• I will find out what is being served.
• I will only have one glass of wine taking small sips to make it last.
• I will pack some nuts, a pouch of tuna or salmon in case there is nothing available that fits in with my eating plan.

Being grateful is being open to greater possibilities existing; no matter how chaotic, confusing, upsetting it may be in that moment.

Now, let me take a moment to be grateful to Dr. Simeons for providing the most miraculous form of weight loss I have ever witnessed. I am grateful his work has enabled me to understand my body’s nutritional needs and help others figure out theirs.

I am grateful for the Get Your Thin On (GYTO) Community (formerly Happily Thinner After) because it is an informed, compassionate, willing and caring group whose collective desire is to be empowered and live in the body of their dreams.

I am grateful for the individuals I have coached in FitCamp (formerly Boot Camp), and privately one on one, for those who have been willing guinea pigs experimenting to discover new and better ways to lose and maintain weight, to work on the little nuances making up their body chemistry, to share that information with me. I am grateful for each person’s uniqueness and what they bring to the program.

My research and learning never ends. As soon as I think I figured something out, someone experiences a little change bringing new information into the mix. As these small tweaks are incorporated, the programs are refined benefiting us all.

One of my clients once asked me if I had ever dreamed Happily Thinner After (HTA) would evolve into what it is has become. Now with the transformation into Get Your Thin On ~ In all honesty, I have to admit I am extremely grateful it is even better than I had hoped. And it’s getting better all the time.

With a special day coming up that focuses on love, consider all the loved ones we are grateful for and the kindness we experience.

Gratitude – it is more than an attitude, it is a lifestyle. Jenni Mullinex