I have been writing about compassion fatigue and will continue to do so next week. I think it is a very important topic for women to think about and discuss as we age. I want to take a break today and add this blog about gratitude, partly because this holiday weekend is an opportune time to be grateful. In addition, developing an attitude of gratitude can provide an important tool for overcoming compassion fatigue.
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“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
Gratitude is the cornerstone of happiness and inner peace, both of which are impossible without it. Cultivating a habit of gratitude can go a long way to creating the mental and spiritual pathways that turns our attention away from feelings of sadness and meaninglessness and toward what is good in life. Just as we wear out the road of self-pity as life takes aim at us, so too can we wear ruts in a road leading in a more positive direction by shifting our thoughts and focus to our blessings.
It is difficult to hold two thoughts in our minds at one time, so replacing a negative with a positive is a very effective tool for dispelling all sorts of tiresome mental habits that do little to bring us happiness. Taking a few minutes each day to list five things, large or small, for which you are grateful, as Sarah Ban Breathnach suggests, will make you smile. I guarantee it. If that isn’t happiness, I don’t know what is.
The above quote was taken from Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance online website. As those of you who have read her book know, she is a big fan of keeping a gratitude journal. No one can be more convincing than this wise woman, so I will provide the link to the page where she provides instructions.
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