Hello Hello and Happy Monday. I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and got enjoy some amazing weather and celebrate some awesome mommas. We had a dream of a weekend. We went to a wedding Saturday and I had so much fun last minute shopping for a dress (queen of procrastination) and then Sunday I was spoiled rotten by my husband and daughter. I relaxed, slept in, got to eat at my favorite restaurant…it was absolute perfection.
Given how full my heart is feeling this morning, I wanted to share something I have touched on a little bit via Instagram in regards to how gratitude and joy relate.
Many times we hear how important it is to express gratitude (ie through a gratitude journal), but what I don’t think is emphasized enough, is WHY this works and is important, which is what I want to share with you today.
It is similar to the concept of manifestation, but essentially you train your mind to begin searching for something. As a result, it filters everything out and begins showing you that over and over again. Our brains are VERY good at filtering. They allow in only so much information, sounds, sights, smells, etc. So, when you ask your mind to find something, it begins to allow that thing or concept in more.
I heard it once explained like this….you are thinking of buying a new car. You are really interested in a white Equinox (I’m using this example because this was the first car I ever had). So, all the sudden, you start to see white Chevrolet Equinoxes everywhere. You never really noticed how many there were before, but now, all the sudden you start to see them all the time. This is because you brain has grasped something you are interested in, so it begins to allow in (via its filter) more Chevrolet Equinoxes. The amount of Chevrolet Equinoxes didn’t increase, you are just seeing them more because YOUR BRAIN IS ALLOWING YOU TO DO SO.
The same goes for gratitude, and ultimately joy. When we begin looking for things we can be grateful for, we begin to find it and see it everywhere. This gratitude – this decision to find what is GOOD – then begins to compound and as a result, instead of seeing what is lacking, we begin to see and find what is good.
It is interesting because for me, I didn’t necessarily start out with practicing gratitude daily. Instead, on my quest to find more joy in my life, I stumbled upon this because I began to simply search for, and appreciate, things that made me happy – my morning cup of coffee, the temperature of the day, my daughter’s laugh. I made a point to begin noticing and appreciating all these things, which in its own way was expressing gratitude.
As I mentioned before, this journey is not going to be roses everyday. There are bad days, and even bad weeks, but there is always growth, and perfection is never the goal. The goal is to merely do better, learn, and create a life full of love and happiness. Sometimes we will succeed in this, and other times we will fail miserably, but it’s within the failure that we really learn and falling back on simple lessons like this one, make all the difference.
I hope you find this tip helpful in your own journey and today I encourage you to soak in simple moments. Maybe you just take note of how delicious your lunch is today, or maybe you laugh with a friend and take a moment to really soak it in…just simple, everyday things we begin to see and feel more deeply.
Life right now is SO busy. We tend to sort of move through the motions, never stopping to really process or take note of what is happening.
xoxo,
Melissa
