M12 Count Your Blessings

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS?

Counting your blessings means to appreciate the good things in your life. Gratitude is simply defined as the state of being grateful. Gratitude involves recognition of things such as a beautiful flower you see on a walk or the feeling of thanks that comes from an act of kindness. 

Gratitude makes life feel sufficient. It turns the things that we have into enough. It turns pessimism to optimism, sorrow to joy, greed to generosity. Gratitude heals our past, brings joy for today and creates hope for the future.

THE KEY TO WELL-BEING

Acknowledging the good in your life is the only way to have a good life. You can have good health, great wealth, a loving family, a successful job and whatever else you deem necessary to have a "good life" but if you do not appreciate, your glass will always feel like it needs to be topped off.

DAILY REFLECTION

Regular daily reflections will change the quality of your life forever. Reflect on both things that you have received and given. Things that have happened to you and that you have done for others. 

Take a minute and think about:

  • One thing you’re thankful for today.
  • One thing that was great about today.
  • One thing that made you happy today.
  • One thing you did well today.
  • One thing you like about yourself today.
  • One thing you did that was kind today.

Counting your blessings can cure the cruelty we sometimes inflict on ourselves. The best way to reap the benefits of gratitude is to count your blessings each and every day, which is why we included it as a daily task in your Metabolism Assessment so it will be engrained into a deeply formed habit.

Get as specific as possible and actually take the time to think about and appreciate of the goodness. Stretch yourself beyond the great stuff right in front of you. Opening your eyes to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your life. Try to notice new things happening not only in but also around your life each and every day.

REFRAME AND RETRAIN

How much different would your life be if you looked for the good in each situation instead of automatically resorting to the bad? Our brains are often trained to think of the negative first. Establishing a gratitude practice is essentially retraining our brains to think of positive things first.

Counting your blessings daily will slowly change the way you perceive situations by adjusting what you focus on.  Shift your focus from what's going wrong to what's going right. It will help you stay in a more positive emotional state even when things aren't that perfect. 

We don't usually have the power to change the people around us or the situations we're in. We do, however, have the capacity to reframe and decide what you're going to tell yourself about the unchangeable facts. Our thoughts are directly connected to our feelings and behaviors. That is, whatever you think impacts the way you feel and act. 

The next time you are in a hard situation, focus on finding something positive to come from it. That doesn't take away from the bad, but what you stay focused on will be brightest. You cannot discover the good by analyzing the bad. Turn on the light from within and the darkness with disappear.

HEALTH BENEFITS

In addition to all of the other ways your life can improve by counting your blessings, it has been shown to improve mental health. It has been shown to ease symptoms of anxiety and depression and can improve your mood along with relationships.  It can also reduce inflammation, boost the immune system and lower blood pressure. A daily practice can decelerate the effects of neurodegeneration that occurs with increasing age. It can lead to better quality of sleep and an overall sense of well-being as well!

A NEW GOAL

Make it a goal to develop an attitude of gratitude and focus on counting the blessings in your life ad that happen throughout your days. Sure, there are always people with "more" than you, but think about all of the people who would give anything to have what you have.  Feeling thankful can be the simplest and fastest way to improve your life.