If you are a regular to my Your Whole Self section in the Newsletter you will know that I talk a lot about gratitude, showing appreciation, being thankful, and in particular I know that some of you will keep a gratitude journal — as do I.

However, do you sometimes go to your journal and feel that you are going through the motions, and rather than really feeling gratitude you are simply doing it because you feel you should or you feel obliged to write something down?

Gratitude is a really great tool and can help to get perspective in life, and showing gratitude can lift spirits and assist us to be in the present.

Some days however it can be hard to feel grateful. Remember though, trying to force yourself to find gratitude on days where grief, anger or so on is affecting you can be contraindicative to the benefits of being thankful. Indeed, finding gratitude through guilt or force is actually unhealthy.

We can look at our lives and analyse, and say there are many good things in our lives so we should feel grateful. For example, looking at the world and some of what has been happening lately — then if we compare our lives to this we should be more thankful. But this is guilt-induced gratitude. Sometimes we believe that we don’t deserve to feel sad or angry, and we should be grateful: we then suppress what we are really feeling, which is also unhealthy.

However, it is always helpful to work on searching for gratitude. It is also valuable to put our circumstances into perspective, as that does give us something to appreciate. But DON’T force it — instead, allow it to happen gradually.

It has to be real, it has to be what you are truly feeling without any judgement, and then you can develop a healthy gratitude ‘muscle’. 

I am truly thankful to all of you for taking the time to read this Newsletter today, and I am grateful that you want to share in this with me. Have a wonderful week folks!

Keep looking, moving and feeling good.

With love

Jane xx