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Positive psychological research in to gratitude has now proven that keeping a gratitude journal for just a few weeks can increase your happiness and benefit your life for as much as 6 months afterwards.

I had a teacher once who would instruct runners as they were training for cross country running to “pump the arms, the legs must follow.” He would shout this command to encourage runners to improve on their times during training. I still use this incantation today when running to breakthrough the plateau and reach the next high…

I liken what this teacher said to the effects of being grateful and how they can be influenced by what you believe. By “pumping the arms” forward and backward, it doesn’t inevitably mean you are going to run faster, or even run at all. You can pump the arms, and be standing completely still.

However, when you integrate the idea of pumping your arms with the running and tell yourself that if you pump the arms, the legs will follow the pumping action, and see yourself running with full energy and enthusiasm to reach your goal, it can take your mind off the sensation of ache that comes from muscles being depleted of energy and requiring more oxygen and ATP, or any self doubt, and keep you focused on pumping the arms and moving forwards to the goal with strength, integrity and purpose…

In this way, by creating gratitude for anything in your life, from the smallest thing, even those things we take for grantid, and nurturing the good feelings of gratitude, the benefits that have been discovered by positive psychology must follow it reasons. Like pumping the arms, there is a component part of believing in what you are doing - a seed of faith may be required. One Master - Jesus Christ - referred to MUSTARD SEED worth of faith is far more than we need to take us to the top - more in fact than required to tell a mountain to move in to the sea I believe… —

Let’s take that analogy that the Divine Master used and slightly change it. Take for example the acorn. Imagine looking upon an acorn, and you do not know what it is, you do not know what it is called. It simply is, without labels. Give it water and nutrients though, give it warm sunlight and good soil, and it will attract to itself everything it requires to grow in to a huge and beautiful Oak tree, capable of producing many more of it’s own kind.

The same principle can be applied to you and to your mind. By being grateful - by actively and consciously cultivating the habit of gratitude - you are planting a seed that will attract unto itself everything it needs to grow and become a full expression of goodness. You will bear fruit of gratitude.

Gratitude is recommended in more than one major religion in the world. Read my Gratitudebook (http://www.gratitudebook.com) to find out more about the spiritual, psychological and metaphysical teachings on gratitude.

If you decide to keep a gratitude journal for instance, have a little faith that it is going to work too. Placebos can be effective - we know that from medicine. Why not lets take advantage of that information and generate even better results in our lives through practising the spiritual and now scientific principle of gratitude.

Anthony Robbins, world renowned NLP developer and seminar leader gives a gratitude excercise in his program, Get the Edge. Here’s what Mr Robbins suggests as an “hour of power”; “30 minutes of passion” or “15 minutes of fulfillment” first thing in the morning…

1) Get moving - get dressed, get shoes on, getting walking - e-motion - energy in motion - get your body moving, get your feelings moving

2) Start feeling and being GRATEFUL. Tony says he uses a kind of “web” technique. So he starts with his family and close friends and build out the web of gratitude to others in his life. Here’s where you can really think about and dwell upon all the things you could be grateful for in your life - and actually thank God for them and acknolwedge yourself, too.

3) Do this for 2-10 minutes

4) Do a breathing excercise where you stimulate your body’s metabolism. Simply breath in the pattern - inspiration (count 1) hold (count 4) expiration (count 2). Do this 10 times.

5) Think about those things you want in your life - visualise as you’re walking. Combining the movement with the visualisations stimulates the emotional energy and your overall energy. This is very effective.

(2-10 minutes again)

6) Excercise to sweat for 15 minutes minimum - run, jog, swim, cycle whatever - just GO GO GO! And at the same time chant INCANTATIONS - like affirmations but you’re saying them in a state of total conviction whilst excercise and with intense repetition.

For example: “Every day in every way I’m getting stronger and stronger” or “I now command my subconscious mind to focus on the accumulation of wealth and to create that wealth along with health, success and happiness NOW” over and again.

You can read my gratitude book via http://www.gratitudebook.com

You can get really big on gratitude by doing a life review of those magic moments that we tend to have forgotten about amidst the pressures of daily living we all tend to experience from time to time. If these experiences have been too few or far between, one way to experience more of them is by programming your brain to look out for them more and how we could do this is going back to previous “magic moment” memories and strengthening them using “NLP” techniques.

So, don’t relax too much just yet, because you’re going to dig up at least 10 memories of magic moments and really get comfortable in knowing you have stored those memories for a rainy day like today.

Process:

Recall a magic moment in your life where you really had a sense of connection, of safety, of wonder, of destiny…

Write out a description of the memory in the present tense…ensure that you include something visual, something auditory and something kinaesthetic in the description. For example:

I am walking around the beautiful country park lake with my family. I am witnessing (visual)  the peace and the stillness of the waters and sensing the gentle, graceful ease and flow that is in nature (kinaesthetic). My mind is totally quiet (auditory) and I feel an inner joy and pleasure at the divineness of the experience (kinaesthetic). I notice birds flying and landing on the lake (visual) and am awe-struck by the natural beauty of it all (see). NOW TO ADD A GRATITUDE STATEMENT: I am so happy and grateful to be with my family enjoying such wondrously simple things in life, that can bring a loving awareness of reassurance, relaxation, divine love and pleasure in nature. I am grateful for the hope this experience brings and for the inner knowing that I am precious to the Creator.

I am happy with this memory. Actually, it can be improved upon by using the imagination to come up with something better. This is called by the author Stuart Lichtman turning a memory in to a “metastory”. You can learn this process using his free ecourse which I present at http://tinurl.com/6qka6 It is a very good ecourse.

The next thing to do is to rate the memory. I rate it a 9 out of 10 which is enough (8-10 is high enough to work with). Now I will read through the memory and really get in touch with the feelings invoked, use the inner mind to get a clear and vivid picture of the experience and include the sounds in the “memory movie”…

To tune it up using NLP, make the sounds brighter, the pictures more colourful and bright, bigger and more close-up, put yourself in the first person and make any sounds internal or external louder.

Make sure that you say your gratitude statement as well to anchor the feeling of gratitude. You can also command to your subconscious mind: “This is a wonderful experience I am recreating. Please create more of such great experiences or better in my life.” if that is true for you.

Next you can make a list of people you are grateful for in your life, their qualities and what about them makes you feel grateful.

You can then make a list of circumstances, events or achievements that you could be grateful for.

And you can also make a list of future events you can feel grateful for right now. This can be very powerful if you have been worried you will not achieve certain goals.

This is a phenomenal “technique” for dealing with any negative thought or indeed any thought that might arise to the mind.

I will be adding to this post with the sequence of questions from the Work worksheets and linking to Byron Katie’s site.

I was just coming off a failed marketing campaign and I was getting tired of being alone.

I was depressed about living in my city as I did not like it but didn’t know where to move.

I was lost.

I won tickets to Jerry Seinfeld and I asked the only two single women I knew to go with me.

They both said no.

After many years of being a workaholic and not dating I finally ask two women out and they said no.

I even had Seinfeld tickets.

It was a low point for me.

I then had a dream that I was in love and successful doing exactly what I wanted to do.

 I loved a special woman, where I lived and the work that I did.

I saw something in my current life in that dream and felt that I had a lot going for me.

So I became grateful for what I had in my life and started looking for more to be grateful for.

I started to look for things in my city that I loved.

I loved the river walk downtown it was so beautiful.

I loved the work I did writing about prosperity.

I became grateful for the like-minded people I met.

I was grateful when I found a group I liked in my city as I felt that I was that much closer to success.

After two months of appreciating everything in my life I met Nancy.

We both loved to talk about international real estate opportunities and we had lunch several times.

I even ran into her at the only spiritual bookstore in my city after a meditation class. We ran into each other several times.

I never had anything like that happen to me.

Nancy then invited me to speak at a womens real estate group.

I give talks on prosperity consciousness and we found we had that in common.

After a well received talk that spurred lots of conversation, Nancy and I talked about prosperity and spirituality until past midnight in the parking lot afterwards.

I then invited her to a dinner with Dr. Joe Vitale and had a lovely time.

After dinner we talked for hours and stayed up until 5am.

Even though I begun to appreciated everything in my life more and was enjoying life more than ever.

I had not seen the ideal woman right in front of me.

Nancy asked if I was interested in her and a light bulb switched on for me immediately. Life is fantastic now and I have much to be grateful for.

Meeting Nancy has changed my life.

Life is a journey and it is never done.

I continue to be grateful for everything in my life, for new things in my life and for old things in my life.

Life is wonderful instantly when you start being grateful for what you have.

Be aware of all opportunities and be grateful for what you have.

Chris Sherrod

http://www.TheProsperityGuy.com Author of “Play Prosperity Games”