positivity

Harness the Power of Gratitude in Your Everyday Life

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

In today’s hectic world, it’s easy to take everyday blessings for granted. 

With so many demands on us—ranging from jobs to kids to health issues and much more—we tend to forget that, in almost all cases, things could worse. 

I often find myself midway through my day before I even pause long enough to think about all the good things going on in my life.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges and struggles—there certainly are. However, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any situation where you can’t be grateful for something. 

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, God actually commands us to be thankful for His blessings. 

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The Scriptures also say in Colossians 3:17:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In these two verses, we find that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we are to be grateful.

I believe there are several reasons that God tells us this.

Not only does our gratitude bring God glory, it also has practical benefits. Being grateful for what we have, even when things look bleak, can help us be more joyful, content, and focused.

Research at Syracuse University concluded that showing gratitude will help you be more positive and can lead to reduced depression and anxiety. 

That’s good news for sure!

When our minds are freed up from depression and anxiety, we can then replace all the old negative thoughts with the positive things in our life.

In Philippians 4:8, we’re reminded to think about:

whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise.

Pointing our mind to the good things in life is the perfect companion to practicing gratitude. This 1-2 punch is a knockout to feelings of doom and gloom.

The Center for NeuroWellness believes that there are at least seven ways that gratitude rewires our brains.

Among these are the ability of gratitude to strengthen positive neural pathways in our brain. The brain actually adapts to positivity, a trait known as neuroplasticity.

This means that the more grateful we are over time, the happier and more well adjusted we’ll feel.

Positivity builds more feelings of positivity. It’s like a good Catch-22. We do our future selves a favor when we show God gratitude because this actually forms new, positive neural pathways in the brain.

However, gratitude is also good for our physical bodies. It benefits our health in many ways.

First of all, being grateful triggers our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps lower our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate so we reduce stress and are able to relax.

In addition, oxytocin is released when we’re grateful, which also helps lower blood pressure and protect our heart health. 

Gratitude can boost our immune system as well. It reduces levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can actually suppress the immune system. 

Life Extension Magazine details how gratitude has also been linked to an increase in Immunoglobulin A, an antibody critical in helping the immune system fight diseases and viruses.

We see that showing God gratitude for all He has done in our lives is good for us in many ways.

Not to mention that it is also God’s will that we do this.

So follow God’s command, and do something good for yourself at the same time by showing Him gratitude today.

Practice Persistent Praise

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

Send up prayers of gratitude throughout every day.

It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? But it’s actually harder to do than you might think. With all the negativity that surrounds our everyday lives, it’s pretty easy to get caught up in a mindset of everything that’s going wrong, instead of thanking God for what’s going right in our lives.

I can’t take credit for the title for this blog post. I actually got the title from a Reel by dr.sherrispeaks. In the Reel, I believe she says she herself heard the concept from someone else. 

The fundamental idea is to give God constant praise for all the blessings He has placed in your life. Even in the worst of circumstances (even though you might have to look really hard), you can find something to thank God for. 

It could be something as simple as a parking spot close to the door, a break in the clouds so that a little sunshine hits your face and gives you a warm feeling, or just the simple chirping of an unseen bird going about its business.

If we continuously focus on all the good that we can find in our lives, there won’t be any room for the negative thoughts to creep in. 

And even if they do, we can quickly kick them out by thinking about another positive blessing or circumstance the Lord has given us. Read Philippians 4:8 for great ideas on how to do this.

I got the following idea from Joyce Meyer. It’s a great way to start your day—or at any point in the day when you need a little encouragement.

Say, “Something good is going to happen to me today. I can hardly wait to see what God is going to do in my life today!”

Then, for the first positive thing that happens in your life or positive thought that comes into your mind, thank God for it, truly being appreciative of all that He does for you.

That’s not even to mention the myriad of situations He works out or protects us from that we literally have no idea about. 

I shudder to think about how many bad things He has shielded me from or directed me to avoid without any real sense of the danger or darkness behind those situations.

We need to be just as grateful and give God just as much praise for these things as we do for all the many praise-worthy blessings we can count on any given day.

As long as we’re consistently grateful and thankful to God, we’ll experience much more joy and peace in our lives, no matter the chaos that’s going on around us.

Don’t Give In to Your Thoughts and Feelings

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

“You don’t have to think about everything you feel, but you will feel everything you choose to think about.

Levi Lusko

Counselors who specialize in cognitive therapy will tell you that your thoughts and feelings don’t determine who you are and how your life has to be. 

They are just emotions that pop into your brain. What we choose to do with them at that point makes all the difference.

For example, we can decide whether we want to linger on the fact that so-and-so never returned our phone call. 

We get to choose whether to get mad (and stay mad) that someone cut us off in traffic. 

We can decide if we’ll let everything go to crap when the thought that the day is ruined flashes into our mind.

These are all decisions that we must make every day, moment by moment. 

The decisions and reactions we make regarding what enters our brain determine how our lives will be—not the stimuli themselves. 

Don’t give your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and impressions more power than they have. You get to determine the course your life takes—not them.

But here’s the thing…

Just because you decide to go ahead and have a good day after a negative thought crosses your mind, doesn’t mean that’s the end. That thought may keep coming back, over and over. You may have to decide dozens of times a day to make your day the best it can be.

It would be nice if we could just make that decision once and that was it. It doesn’t work that way, however.

Moment by moment, we must decide what our outlook on our situation is going to be. How will we react to each interaction, event, or incident in our lives?

It can be hard when you first start taking control of your reactions to your thoughts. The task seems daunting. However, it gets easier the longer you do it. 

Begin making it a habit to think positively about your situation, no matter what you find yourself in. Find something good you can focus on, rather than something bad.