The “Gratitude Police” came visiting awhile ago to let us know that we have a lot more to be grateful for than what we’d been feeling and expressing.
There had been a lot of things happening in our lives that we’d been fighting against really hard…
You might even say we’d been struggling against “what is” and wishing, hoping and praying that things could be or would be different…
But they weren’t.
Nothing serious compared to what others were going through but unsettling none the less.
You might be feeling the same way and want things to turn out differently than they are.
Just like everybody else…
When our thinking gets ratcheted up and we start getting caught up in spinning stories about how this or that shouldn’t be happening…
What we don’t have in moments like these is gratitude.
At that time, we learned that really close friends had been going through a severe life challenge…
And all we can do was love them from afar and let them know we were there for emotional support.
We came away from a conversation with them and later updates feeling immense gratitude for our lives, how good we really have it and for what is present for us right now.
When just one hour before, we were falling into a “pity party” about how awful things were, especially around the cancelled holiday plans.
It’s amazing how a little perspective change can shift our thinking, attitude and the way that we move forward in life in more positive, easier ways.
But we forget to be grateful.
We forget how gratitude can bring more peace and love into our lives!
Maybe for all of us, it’s time to focus on being grateful for even the small things in life and on expressing gratitude for no reason at all.
The two of us sometimes joke that it might be helpful to have something called the “Gratitude Police” in our lives to remind us that we need to focus on being grateful every day and in every moment.
Yes, there are a lot of things happening in the world that we all wish were different AND there is so much to be grateful for.
When it comes to gratitude, part of it is about focus and part of it is about a realization, and understanding, a truth that you can’t deny when you see it.
This truth is…
There is always a lot to be grateful for and we’re all always okay.
And where there’s gratitude, there’s a whole lot more ease, peace and love available to us.
We (like a lot of people) simply forget this.