Gratitude Rocks!

I'm not going to lie.

There are times when I am not the most positive person in the house. Just ask my husband.

Just ask my ex-husband.

Negative.

I think that's the word he used.

And I hate being negative. I work against being negative. I coach against being negative, BUT...

There. It. Was.

So I decided to go with it. To look at it. And to try to understand why I was holding on to it so tightly. Could it be that everything really was going wrong? That my life was falling apart, I didn't feel good and everything really did suck?

Hmmm, that seemed a little extreme, even to me. Even in this mood, fighting a head cold and oh so frustrated with technology, I still realized that everything could not possibly be that bad.

So I looked closer, dug deeper and it became clear, that something was missing. Something BIG. I needed an attitude adjustment, and as a coach, I knew just where and how to get one.

Gratitude.

It wasn't my circumstances and the things I perceived to be happening to me that were making me so negative, it was what I chose to believe about what was happening that was fueling my negative attitude and energy. I really was choosing, perhaps unconsciously, to focus my attention on everything that was challenging, or that I perceived as an obstacle and I decided to make it negative.

Each and every day we are presented with circumstances and events outside of ourselves and our control. With each of these, we are presented with an opportunity. It is actually not what is happening to us that shapes our experience and response, it is our thoughts and perception about it.

And here's the beautiful thing, if we remember to embrace it. Gratitude solves it all. Literally. It can turn the worst of situations into a gift. It can turn trials into opportunity, heart break into bliss, darkness into light.

That may seem very easy and fluffy to you, but the next time you are feeling negative, angry or down about something try this.

1. Try questioning your thoughts about what is happening.

2. Turn those thoughts around, how can this negative become positive?

3. Apply gratitude to the equation, what is the gift or opportunity here.

4. If all of the above seems just a little too hard then back up, start a simple list of things you have to be grateful for. Maybe it really is very simple. Do you have the ability to smell a flower, to taste a meal, or crawl into a warm bed? Get back to basics and begin there.

Once you infuse darkness with light, the darkness can be no more.