The contributions of thanking to our lives are so important that they have a direct impact on our integral health, so gratitude has become one of the fundamental qualities or values to achieve positive progress in our lives, and if you have not become aware of this yet, it is good that you read these lines well, so that you keep in mind gratitude at all times.
The fact that gratitude is practiced by learning to thank in the sincerest way possible for everything that people, life or God provides us is one of the key elements to achieve well-being because this way we will feel good about ourselves and our fellow men and we will be taking the first step to assume a transcendental change in our lives, which will be the right hand of awareness that in turn provides serenity and peace to our lives.
However, we must admit that although there are people who are very grateful for everything that comes into their lives including some things, people and / or situations that are apparently not so positive, there are others whom thanking is too difficult and who don’t know how to apologize. These people are generally self-centred, arrogant and indolent, dragging with them regret, fears, insecurities, and although they may have many material possessions, they do not have a true state of well-being.
Thus, thanking is based on the acceptance of everything that happens to us, but not of resignation. We appreciate all the positive, however small, and the negative because we learn from it; because the opposite has missed the opportunity to do so, and similar situations will return to our lives, originated by the known law of attraction, or law of cause and effect.
But we should not confuse accepting with resignation, since the latter implies bowing to what happens to us; it is simply a positive and optimistic attitude about what happens to us, so that learning is generated and with it there is well-being.
However, experts in the matter argue that gratitude should not necessarily be associated with excess optimism, since this can bring false expectations, unrealizable goals and objectives, out of context and our reality, producing a disagreement with our capabilities and circumstances, which can be counterproductive, because that is where dissatisfaction, complaining and lack of well-being are generated. So we must reflect to find balance between our thoughts, ideas, words and actions, and thus personal and spiritual growth will be achieved.
On the contrary, one of the alternatives not to fall into exacerbated positivism is to practice daily gratitude, which begins with an act of admitting or realizing everything that life has given us, starting with the fact that we breathe and exist and for what we thank what we have and obtain instead of focusing on and complaining about what is missing.
This does not mean that you have to give up or resign, but rather it is part of the awareness and acceptance of circumstantial limitations, which forces us to leave aside the rush to want to change things. It is about having the firm intention of changing them, letting them flow, since this hurried attitude makes us create false expectations and with it many times anxiety, dissatisfaction, stress and discomfort are generated, limiting our healthy relationship with our peers and with life itself.
To those people who are unable to include gratitude in their lives because they are dissatisfied with what they have and / or happen in their lives and never feel satisfied, we are going to dedicate an old story that says the following: “In a hermitage, before an image of the Virgin, a young man cried complaining because he had no shoes, until behind him he heard the laments of an old man who, on his knees, cried because he had no feet”.
But to be grateful, we must not reach that point; it is not necessary to see that another suffers more than us or has less; although as it is not about being perfect, at the moment when you are complaining about how bad you are, bring to your mind one of the millions of cases of people who are a thousand times worse than you, it is a basic exercise to reflect, place ourselves in the present moment and let gratitude knock on the doors of your heart.
We must be clear that gratitude is an attitude that is born from humility, and dissatisfied people are not humble, and they should start by admitting their mistakes and limitations, so that they are willing to make mistakes and learn, and above all they must be prepared to ask for forgiveness; only that way they can help, respect and value others, as well as show themselves as a generous, kind and supportive beings, stopping showing off or boasting, for which it is necessary to speak less, know how to listen and act positively in the face of life’s vicissitudes.
Therefore, gratitude provides many contributions to our life, and by assuming and practicing it we connect with the true essence of life, which contributes to our happiness and to practice a balanced optimism, which reduces dissatisfaction, and favours adaptation to the circumstances. All this brings a lot of well-being, since it improves our emotional, mental and physical health, thus raising self-esteem, confidence and security, making us much more aware of our reality, which allows us to live the present by improving relationships and making them healthier with an approach based on realistic positivism.
ALFA