{"id":953,"date":"2013-08-17T09:23:45","date_gmt":"2013-08-17T13:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/?p=953"},"modified":"2013-08-19T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T00:41:08","slug":"from-irritation-to-appreciation-take-the-gratitude-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/from-irritation-to-appreciation-take-the-gratitude-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"From Irritation to Appreciation: Take the Gratitude Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

In my line of work and professional interest, I often come across people who want to express that they are grateful, or at least not ungrateful, for what they have.\u00a0 The phrases come out as some variant of \u201cI know how lucky I am.\u201d\u00a0 It may be \u201cI know it could be so much worse,\u201d or \u201cGod wouldn’t give me anything I can\u2019t handle and I know I should be thankful.\u201d\u00a0 Often the thoughts are triggered by seeing people whom they view as being \u201cworse off.\u201d\u00a0 Other times, the comments seem related to a fear of being perceived as coping poorly, especially if the person is in some way touting a spiritually awakened lifestyle or career path.\u00a0 Surely, if one is a counselor, therapist, religious adviser, Yogi, or some other enlightened professional, one must be awakened all the time.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I became interested in meditation was the Eastern philosophy at its root.\u00a0 The belief is that all beings suffer. Period.\u00a0 \u201cAll Beings.\u201d\u00a0 Most people have had the experience somewhere along the way of believing that another person has a perfect life and seems exempt from trouble.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet, some way down the road, it becomes apparent that life is not all rosy for that idealized person.\u00a0 Rather, we may learn of monetary woes of those who appear to have it all. Similarly, we may come to find out that the impossibly fit person on TV suffers from an eating disorder.\u00a0 Evermore, it is revealed that the star athlete admired by millions of fans struggles with escalating depression and drug use.<\/p>\n

So what is our reaction to this?\u00a0 At times, it may tempting to give up entirely and <\/strong>adopt a completely reactive opposite view, such as the belief that everyone is miserable and life is terrible. \u00a0A more equitable approach, though, is to recognize that all beings suffer in some way, and that we can still be in appreciation despite there being suffering in our own lives, whether or not others have it worse off.\u00a0 That is no easy feat.<\/p>\n

In order to develop a balanced view and combat dissatisfaction, one might consider creating what I call a \u201cPositive Events Log.\u201d\u00a0 To keep it simple, start with a column for days of the week.\u00a0 Then, create a second column for the situation (i.e. taking a walk, dinner, driving in traffic, boss yelling, etc.).\u00a0 Next, build a column for positive thoughts.\u00a0 Lastly, save space for positive sensations.\u00a0 It may seem confusing to include situations that appear negative such as traffic and an unpleasant boss.\u00a0 However, these are the situations that warrant our extra attention as they are the ones we get stuck in \u2013 the ones that challenge us to feel gratitude. \u00a0You will find that practicing gratitude this way daily during minor challenges will pave the way for doing it during times of greater difficulty.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You may find yourself thinking that you can just change your view in your mind and not need to write anything down.\u00a0 I encourage you to make the task concrete, even if you are fully capable of keeping track of it mentally, because writing or speaking the experience into a recorder or voice-to-text program engages a part of your brain that facilitates learning.\u00a0 (To consider additional ways to make your habits stick, read our article \u201cWant Your Goals to Stick: Toss Out Your Goals and Set an Intention<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Perhaps, in order to truly appreciate something, we must build an appreciation \u201cmuscle.\u201d\u00a0 To build anything takes time, training, and inevitable periods of failure.\u00a0 It is equally important to notice when we have fallen off track.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t, we risk living a world in which our words don\u2019t line up with our actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my line of work and professional interest, I often come across people who want to express that they are grateful, or at least not ungrateful, for what they have.\u00a0 The phrases come out as some variant of \u201cI know how lucky I am.\u201d\u00a0 It may be \u201cI know it could be so much worse,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,45,39,5],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compassion-meditation","category-gratitude","category-mindfulness-2","category-stress-management","tag-compassion-meditation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YyuX-fn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymindfulwayoflife.com\/blog4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}