Gratitude when you do not feel grateful
Few years ago I had a good life, and yet I found myself complaining and complaining about all the small insignificant details. I knew I was supposed to practice gratitude, but when you are in a role of complaining, there are no feelings of gratitude coming to you, or so you think, because you start seeing everything from a filter, a dark filter.
From time to time, even though I realized what happened then (lost everything I had), I find myself not “feeling” the motivation or whatever you want to call it, to just sit down and feel grateful, let alone write it down. So if you have those moments, how can you shift, and practice gratitude when you do not feel like it?
Let me start by saying that you have to understand something, it's ok to have human feelings, even the negative ones!
Most likely, when you do not feel grateful, or even feeling like practicing gratitude, and especially if you are a good person, this can happen, and there are feelings arising, like guilt and shame!
Do not ignore those feelings, or other feelings like upset, unworthiness, or whatever feelings that someone, at some point in your life told you, you are not supposed to feel. Especially if you grew up in religion, some feelings are unholy and come from sin.
I am not here to say it is not true, I am here to say that you are human, and when those arise it is ok to feel them, what is not ok is to let yourself sink into them, to a point it rules your life.
So here are some ideas when you are not “in the mood” to practice gratitude
Journal to this:
What feelings rise up at the moment?
Where do those feelings come from?
Are those feelings making you feel unworthy, shame or guilt? If so, then why?
Dig deep!! Freestyle and make sure you DUMP all of it!! A clean house means to take the trash out, and separate what can be recycled.
Now that you have acknowledge your TRUE human feelings, practice self compassion, imagine yourself from the eyes of someone who truly loves you, the unconditional love, if this is hard for you to see it, then imagine someone who you truly love, and he/she is sharing with you all the feelings, and you are ensuring that it is ok to feel that way, and it is a natural human experience.
From this point, find just small things you can feel grateful for, maybe your coffee this morning got cold (ugh you wanted hot coffee) but then you shift and say “Wow this is an opportunity to try that new iced coffee recipe I saw on Pinterest! Thank you coffee for getting cold”
If you started a gratitude journal, but have nothing to write on it at night, just write one thing, maybe it was the 5 minutes extra break you got, and you were able to enjoy a moment of silence. Journal on it!!!
Here are some of my favorite Budget Friendly Journals
Sometimes our lack of gratitude comes from past regrets and future worries, practice mindfulness, 5-10 minutes of meditation in silence, imagining that situation specifically that it is causing regret or worry, let it feel for 3 seconds, then take a deep breath, and when you breath out, imagining that breath blowing air into a balloon, and when you are done release the balloon and watch it disappear. Take another deep breath, breath in calm, forgiveness, and tolerance, then breath out and think of it as releasing.
You can also practice a small tangent (or rampage as I like to call them) about gratitude starting small, and then go big!! I have an audio that helps you in the Queen Vee Community, joining it is completely free, and I have many other resources.
I hope these small Mindful Tasks 😉 help you get in a mindset shift to practice more gratitude. Let me know in an email or DM in IG @mindfultasksacademy or send me a DM in the Queen Vee Community about how these help you shift your mindset to start practicing gratitude.
Thank You! I will see you next time…. And remember
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