Gratitude. It’s at the heart of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, but why should we only flex our gratitude muscles on one day? Why not everyday? Practicing gratitude is so good for us! It has been shown to BOOST OUR HEALTH and help us to BECOME HAPPIER PEOPLE. Gratitude is the dark, leafy green vegetable of attitudes. Being grateful nourishes our mind, body and soul. In the big and small challenges of everyday life, gratitude is that fresh breath of air that shifts our perspective. It anchors us and centers us to help us gain clarity on what truly matters.
Once we hop on that gratitude train, the world opens up for us in a whole new way. Gratitude awakens other important “muscle” groups: compassion, patience and kindness to name a few. “Gratitude is the open door to abundance” and the possibilities are limitless.
We can never have too much gratitude in our hearts. So, dear friends, take a moment to be grateful today and everyday. It will TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE.
From Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D (the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude), here are
TEN WAYS TO BECOME MORE GRATEFUL:
1. Keep a Gratitude Journal. Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable life theme of gratefulness.
2. Remember the Bad. To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.
3. Ask Yourself Three Questions. Utilize the meditation technique known as Naikan, which involves reflecting on three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?”
4. Learn Prayers of Gratitude. In many spiritual traditions, prayers of gratitude are considered to be the most powerful form of prayer, because through these prayers people recognize the ultimate source of all they are and all they will ever be.
5. Come to Your Senses. Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.
6. Use Visual Reminders. Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude. Often times, the best visual reminders are other people.
7. Make a Vow to Practice Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behavior increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.
8. Watch your Language. Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses the language of gifts, givers, blessings, blessed, fortune, fortunate, and abundance. In gratitude, you should not focus on how inherently good you are, but rather on the inherently good things that others have done on your behalf.
9. Go Through the Motions. If you go through grateful motions, the emotion of gratitude should be triggered. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude.
10. Think Outside the Box. If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must creatively look for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful.
With gratitude,
Coach Jentry
Gumsaba Fitness Class schedule Thursday 11/20/14
5:30AM Sunrise Danville Womens only class – Coach Briana – Medicine Ball Partner Drill
5:30AM Sunrise Danville Mens only class – Coach Joel – Medicine Ball Partner Drill
6AM Sunup Walnut Creek Co-Ed class – Coach Jentry – Circuit + AMRAP
9AM Sunshine Walnut Creek Womens only class – Coach Briana – Medicine Ball Partner Drill
11:00PM Cytosport High Intensity Interval Training – Coach Briana (private class) Cardio Core Showdown
12:00PM Cytosport Power Yoga – Coach Michelle B. (private class)
4PM Cytosport Vinyasa Flow Yoga Benicia – Coach Michelle D. (private class)