Begin with Gratitude To Attract More Joy

How can you use gratitude to attract more joy? Simple. Gratitude expands awareness, opening your consciousness to receive. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, energy flows where attention goes. In other words, when you take time to focus on the people, things and situations for which you are grateful, you tune in to that frequency and attract more joy into your life.

pray, hands, grateful-2408038.jpg

“Gratitude expands awareness, opening your consciousness to receive.”

From Angel Blessings, Cards of Sacred Guidance and Inspiration by Kimberly Marooney.

Sounds easy, right? Except, why do we often find ourselves thinking about negative experiences and unpleasant emotions? The answer is, in the words of Lady Gaga, “Baby you were born this way!”. Our amazing human evolution is based on survival. To stay alive, our ancestors had to remember dangerous and threatening situations more than peaceful and joyful ones.

Evolving from survive to thrive.

We are hardwired for survival and for hanging on to the bad stuff. So, in knowing this, we can have a different perspective on the ever-revolving hamster wheel of resentful thoughts that sometimes consumes us. (Come on, I know you’ve been there!) There’s nothing wrong with you. You are just activating your innate ability to survive and thrive.

The catch is, now that you have shed some light on this go-to mechanism and brought it into your field of awareness, you’re responsible for changing it if it’s no longer an appropriate response for you; that is, if it doesn’t serve your goals or the best version of yourself.

Stepping into gratefulness.

The good news is, small and consistent steps taken on a daily basis can help you to shift your thinking and your emotions towards embodying joy. By taking one minute out of your day to focus your attention on what or who you are truly grateful for, you begin directing your energy towards manifesting more of want you want and less of what you don’t want. You can literally change your brain chemistry and the way it is wired…especially if you couple your thoughts of gratitude with deep conscious breathing.

Be aware of your breath…it’s a powerful thing!

Breath awareness helps to keep us grounded and fully present. It creates a space in time and in your body to hold your intention. Deep breathing techniques help you to relax, to heal and to be in the flow by influencing your parasympathetic nervous system. (That’s the opposite of what happens in fight or flight/high-stress situations that put you into survival mode.) So, consciously bringing your attention to your breath is the first step in actually being present in your body, or being embodied. Then, you can more easily fill yourself with gratitude and feelings of bliss. The more you practice this, the more effortless and natural it becomes.

Create a new habit.

When you try something for the first time, there can be some hesitation or resistance, but with a consistent daily routine you can create a new healthy habit. According to research, it takes 21 days to form a habit, based on the fact that it takes about that long to form new neural pathways in your brain from engaging in novel activities and/or adopting different behaviours. To illustrate this, I like to use the analogy of two paths in the forest:

One path (the path you most often take) is clear, safe, familiar and easy to travel. The other path (the one you’ve rarely or never taken) is difficult to see. It is not clearly marked. It’s filled with obstacles like rocks and fallen branches and the possibility of unknown dangers. Given the choice, why would you ever take the other path?

Choose your path.

Well, while it’s true that the first path is the simplest one to take, it always leads you to the same destination. I don’t know who coined this phrase first, but many motivational figures have said, “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten”. Ya dig? The new path will surely lead you into unknown territory, but it also has the potential to take you to a place that is far better than before. Over time, choosing this new path instead of the old one, makes it clearer, easier and opens you up to new possibilities, people and places that you could be deeply grateful for.

Use gratitude to attract more joy with this simple exercise. (Do it once or repeat throughout your day. You choose!)

  • Either sitting in a chair with your back supported or lying down, notice the flow of your natural breathing for 5 breaths.
  • Notice where you feel the breath in your body (belly, chest, other)
  • Place your hands on your belly and take 3 breaths through your nose, repeating to yourself, ‘I breathe in, I breathe out’
  • Now close your eyes (if you’d like) and think of 3 things/people you are grateful for
  • Focus on any positive feelings or sensations that come up
  • Smile! You’re done!

I’m truly grateful that you have read to the end of this blog! I hope you tried this exercise and continue to use gratitude to attract more joy into your every day. This gratitude exercise is part of my 21 Day 4 Embodied Joy Starter Challenge Program. If you’d like to learn more about this program and/or be part of the next challenge launch, please click on the link below.

To learn more about my group yoga or private yoga classes and transformational coaching programs, please click here:

https://soniabaillon.com/home

About the author: Bio

This blog contains links to affiliate sites. Sharing some of my favourite products with you helps me to create more valuable free content!

1 thought on “Begin with Gratitude To Attract More Joy”

Comments are closed.