The Grateful List

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melody Beattie

There's a lot to be said for gratitude, and it's a virtue that's getting a really good wrap lately. Earlier this year I caught the tail end of a radio interview where the announcers were discussing Oprah's gratitude journal. I filed it away as something to look into later on, but I didn't think of it again until I was playing around on my iPhone and came across a gratitude diary application. Curiously I downloaded it, and quickly got into the habit of listing at least five things I was grateful for each day. It wasn't always easy though. It took me a while to change my mindset from searching for the big things - the 'meaningful' parts of my day. However each evening as I broke down my activities, it became clear that it was the little things that made it memorable. Things like getting all the green lights on the way to work, or the extra hug from my son after I'd already started walking through the school gate. It's those little things that create the big memories. They keep us humble and they open our hearts to receive love.

When we are grateful for something, we instantly change our energy into a positive vibration, and as we increase our acknowledgement of things to be grateful for, we automatically start to see and create more of the same. We experience more happiness, more abundance, more prosperity, more well-being, more love, more joy and everything else you have chosen to be grateful for. It all boils down to something I'm utterly passionate about - The Law of Attraction. What we focus on, expands...

Recently my co-worker decided to post only positive status updates on her Facebook profile, and so begun her daily dose of gratitude. It caught on, and pretty soon her friends - me included - joined in on the act. On the weekend Mandy took it a step further and has now created The Grateful List as a community page on Facebook. Now we have a wondeful place to share gratitude, and to admire and inspire each other.


Gratitude is my heart's response to something that has moved me, and the act of being grateful has now become an intentional ritual in my life. It has transformed the way I live, the way I think, and the way in which I respond to others - for that I am thankful.

What are you grateful for today?