Be grateful, feel great

Anything we focus on will grow – whether that’s negative or positive. 

As a man or woman thinks in their hearts, so they will be.

Or as founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, said: “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”

The power of thinking is massive. That is if you’re reading a gratitude list out aloud or thinking of people, places and things for which you’re grateful – those words are very powerful.

They are the words that create the world you live in. In fact, everything around that’s man-made was started with a thought, and a thought is merely a collection of internal words.

Thoughts are astounding. Think the words “rock star” really loudly, shout them inside your head. You can hear them and yet no one else can, even if someone was right beside you, even touching their forehead to your forehead…

It’s the same if you picture a scene – say, an idyllic sunny garden or an icy hell – that’s something only you can see. Yet you can also feel the warmth of the garden and shiver at the image of hell in your mind. 

So what are thoughts? Some people say that every thought is a prayer.

Okay, and pray means to “ask earnestly”. So perhaps every thought is what you are asking for earnestly.

So the words that we think so often become our reality.

Everyone, for instance, knows about the importance of positive psychology in sports. Someone might be physically the most talented footballer in the world.

But if they didn’t believe and feel that belief inside that they were going to win a match – they are much more likely not to have a good game.

If the majority of the players on a team go out on the pitch thinking they’re going to lose, they will almost certainly lose. We can include the fans on this too.

Likewise, families, communities and even nations can have similar collective thoughts that create their environment, the world they live in. You see with this the power the media and advertising can have on us all.

Gratitude in terms of psychology has only been looked at relatively recently, perhaps for a couple of decades. Until then most of the focus was on what was causing people to have their mental health issues.

In some ways this is the long way round though, because if you’re grateful you cannot be depressed or anxious at the same time. So perhaps it is years of focussing on lack and negative aspects of life that, at least, play a part in some of someone’s painful mental health condition.

Gratitude always beats away depression and anxiety, just as light always pushes away dark. You know it cannot not do that: you cannot shine light into dark and it stay dark.

So although gratitude has only recently been looked into in psychology it has for several decades been a part of Twelve Steps recovery. Then, going back centuries, gratitude has always played a significant part in spirituality and organised religions.

With these, it’s vital to give gratitude to God or Allah or whatever the person chooses to call their Higher Power. For wellbeing and growth it’s vital to remember that we are given a gift called life.

We’re all given the gift of life and my knowing is that is because we’re all here for an amazing reason. All those dark things such as depression and anxiety are painful as they are getting our attention – as with all pain – to do something differently or make changes.

Humans are amazingly intricate beings. So we’re simply not going to have emotional or mental health pain for no reason. That just doesn’t make any sense.

With emotional or mental health pain, it’s just the same as if I hold my finger over a candle flame. Then I’m going to feel pain.

With my finger hurting from the fire, I move it. I’m doing something different, making the necessary change.

The pain has told me that. 

If I tried to ignore the pain or masked or numbed it with such as a strong painkiller or lots of alcohol, the pain is still going to be there. It’s just that maybe I can’t feel it.

But it’s actually going to be getting worse as my nervous system is trying to increasingly tell me to do something differently, to move. The pain is going to spread too, the wound it’s going to leave will then be bigger.

If I don’t move my hand at all, the flame will spread and eventually burn all there is there. At some point, there will be nothing left of what I’ve left in the flame, of what was the source of the pain.

Emotional pain is exactly the same. It’s the resistance that is most often the biggest and certainly the long-term problem.

If we face what is causing the pain, if we go into the anxiety or the depression – and people will need help from someone who knows what they’re talking about with this – it’s always telling you something. It will be teaching something.

It is directing you to the changes that need to be made. If you ignore it or attempt to numb or mask it, at some point, there will be nothing left.

I firmly believe we live in a loving and abundant world that is always trying to help us. This can be very difficult for some people who have grown up in a household that focused on negative and lack and that the world and all that’s in it is out to get us and never to be trusted.

I say to them, let’s turn this around because if you look it’s certainly a loving and abundant world. Most people in it are great and the planet is an amazing place and we’re all here for an amazing reason. Let’s find out what that is for you.

So we need to deal with whatever the mental health or spiritual sickness condition is that’s getting your attention to make the necessary changes. Because presently, until you make those changes, it’s blocking you from becoming your greatest ideal. From becoming who you can be.

Left like this, your inside will never match your outside. With this, the majority of people will need to look back at their childhood and unresolved histories and consider what traumas there might be.

But one of the first things is that people need to steady themselves, to realize a sense of hope and order.

Finding gratitude plays a massive part in that.