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One of my favorite sayings is “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem”~Jack Sparrow from Curse of the Black Pearl.
When life is not going well & it seems like one thing after another is piling up, how do you respond? Are you a person who rises above and conquers the massive mountain in front of you? Are you the person that hides & waits for someone else to jump in & help? Do you spiral out of control eating every feeling?
Someday I want to be able to say that I am the person who rises above & tackles what is being thrown/hurled at me. I am not that person. I am the one who eats every emotion. Even now when I know better.
I am working on goal planning & overcoming this obstacle called perfectionism that disguises itself as procrastination. See I am afraid of failing, and not doing something perfectly. I waste a lot of time researching something, only to eventually do nothing with the knowledge I learn because it is scary & it isn’t coming together the way I envision it. This starts a downward spiral of feeling like the world is crashing in on me. The pressure has been known to build until I blow up. This was until a couple of years ago when I started practicing gratitude.
I don’t remember how I came to this wonderful conclusion that gratitude combats pressure & anger. However I came to this knowledge, I put it to the test. I started saying 5 things I am grateful for each day, for 21 days. The rule was that everyday at one point in the day I would list 5 things I was grateful for & they couldn’t repeat. So they were 5 new things everyday. To ensure there were no repeats I would write them down. Lo & behold it worked, I stopped being so angry. The pressure to accomplish the mountain wasn’t so daunting.
I would love to say that it is a daily habit for me to practice gratitude & maybe one day it will be, but I am not there yet. I can say that I notice if life is just ticking me off a lot, I do start to practice gratitude again. Sticking to the rule of 5 new things each day, never repeating, seeing the results time & time again.
I know with Thanksgiving coming, I see a lot of people post about being thankful. With Christmas just shortly after that, everyone is so much more friendly. Does the gratitude help our attitude? I am not sure that Thanksgiving helps everyone be nicer at Christmas. It is a nice thought though.
We as people are excited for the holiday season. The twinkling lights, the surprises, family &/or friends, lots of good food & gathering together. Our attitudes are more jovial & generous.
I believe that this can happen more throughout our life if we are practicing gratitude. If we remember why life is wonderful for us. It will not be the same for each person, it will take more effort for some than others. Overall though when we practice gratitude it does alter our attitude toward life.
I invite you to practice gratitude to build a better attitude & let me know in the comments how it goes.
Join me in this great big journey of becoming healthy one petal at a time. Building upon each new petal. Growing stronger each new day.
Crystal