Life
How You Can Use the Power of Gratitude to Your Advantage

The word gratitude has been tossed around, but do you know exactly what it means or how to implement it into your life? Someone has probably told you in your life, “Express more gratitude.” Well, that sounds like a great idea, but if you don’t know what gratitude is, how can you fully express it in your life? It’s a concept that once you grasp, it will change your life.
We live such busy lives that we often forget to express thanks for everything around us. You see, gratitude interchanges with the word thanks. Giving thanks and gratitude are synonymous with each other. When you’re expressing gratitude you’re essentially giving thanks for a certain situation. Gratitude is looking for the good in every situation and expressing appreciation. Your appreciation need not be elaborate, something as simple as taking a second out of your day to say thanks in your mind.
When you wake up in the morning, you can take a second to say thanks for your family or your job. Gratitude helps keep your perspectives in check when you start to get down. It’ll allow you to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing in life. Your gratitude should be expressed to something that doesn’t have monetary value.
It’s normal to get caught up in negative thinking. For example, if something didn’t go right at work or the weather has been terrible, you can begin to think negatively. You will never live a good life with negative thinking. Not that you need to look at the positives in every situation because there will be times when negative thinking is relevant. The goal is to decipher when you should be negative and when you should look towards gratitude to get rid of the negative thinking.
If you’re working at a job and something doesn’t work out, it’s easy to become negative. You forget the fact you have a job which means you’re more well off than most people. Gratitude is looking at your negative situation and seeing the good in it.
Have you ever been around someone who is negative? Did you like being around them? Of course you didn’t! How does it feel when you’re around someone who is positive? Doesn’t it feel good to be around them? Take a look at your negative event and see if you can find anything positive. Gratitude allows you to slow down and fully embrace the moment you’re in.
Now that you know what gratitude is, how can you use it to your advantage?
The first step towards using gratitude to your advantage is keeping a gratitude journal. This is something as simple as using your phone to note the good that has happened during your day. You’ll realize that no matter how bad your day is, there is always something positive within it.
The next negative event you encounter after reading this article, try to find the positive in it. Get in the mindset of looking for the positive in the bad. This shift will change your entire world view.
Try to give at least one compliment out per day. This will also shift your mindset towards looking for the positive in every person you come across. You realize that you’ll feel just as good as the person receiving the compliment. When you give someone a compliment without a covert contract, it will make you feel better.
Once you’ve completed the steps above, try going an entire week saying nothing negative. It’s easy to think of something negative but try to restrain yourself from saying it. By your sheer willpower, you will notice just how many negative thoughts you have per day.
The last step towards expressing gratitude in your life is donating your time or money to a cause you deem worthy. You will learn when you spend money or your time on something other than yourself, it will bring you happiness in your life. Gratitude will never be something you buy but rather something you cultivate on a daily basis.
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward
Gratitude also has health benefits
It’s also been scientifically proven that gratitude can provide health benefits. With technology in our hands, it’s easy to become impatient. The more you practice gratitude in your life, the more patient and understanding you can become. When you’re more patient in your life, you can make better decisions. Wouldn’t we all like to make better decisions?
Gratitude can help you get better sleep because you’re no longer thinking about the negative events that are taking place in your life. The reason many people don’t get good sleep is because they’re thinking about negative events as they fall asleep. This causes them to wake up during the night in angst. Gratitude can soothe your nervous system, allowing you to have a more peaceful sleep.
Most importantly, gratitude can give you happiness that lasts. There are tons of things in this world that can give you short bursts of happiness, but wouldn’t you want that happiness to last longer? Gratitude can sustain your happiness because it’s something over the long term and not something that can go away. There will always be something to express gratitude about if you just open your eyes. By taking the time to express gratitude throughout the day, you will notice an overall positive change to your mental state.
Still think expressing gratitude is a little out there? Hear what these successful people have to say about expressing gratitude.
Alan Burak from renowned investment firm, Never Alone Capital said that the power of gratitude has allowed him to reach his full potential in life, expressing his true love and passion each day. How would it feel to reach your full potential? You probably aren’t even close to becoming the person you were meant to be, but expressing gratitude each day can help you get closer to that person.
Lewis Howes, host of the top 100 business podcast School of Greatness said, “It reminds us how lucky we are to have whatever it is that we have–our breath, sunshine, water to drink, a cool breeze.” In a world where we’re always craving for more, gratitude can help you bring joy in the present moment. It’s been said that the best things in life are free and gratitude exemplifies that fact.
“Gratitude is the key to joy; it turns what we have into being enough.” – Lewis Howes
Ryan Holiday, a New York Times best-selling author and practitioner of stoicism said that with the practice of gratitude, you can be thankful for what you have every day instead of once per year. The way to embrace gratitude into your life on a daily basis means to accept whatever happens to you. You no longer get mad at the bad, but figure out how to deal with it. When you feel happiness, you embrace it for as long as possible because you don’t know when that moment will reappear.
Gratitude can have a profound impact on your life, but you need to keep sticking with it. It’s a lifelong practice you need to keep at. Think about how much your life would change if you felt happier and more fulfilled in each second of the day.
How do you practice gratitude every single day? Let us know in the comments below!
Life
The Imbalanced Problem with Work/Life Balance
Balancing is for your checkbook, gymnastics, and nutrition; not for your people’s work/life ratio.

Balance…it requires an equal distribution of value between two or more subjects to maintain steady composure and equitable proportionality. (more…)

It’s 2023, a new year, new you, right? But how do we start over? How do we make the changes in our lives that we crave so much to see? (more…)
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Failing is More Important Than Succeeding
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People often consider failure a stigma. Society often doesn’t respect the people who failed and avoids and criticizes their actions. Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures. Not to have endeavored is worse than failing in life as at some stage of your life you regret not having tried in your life. (more…)
Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
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