Signs of the Times: Five

More on gratitude

I seem to be stumbling on things about gratitude this month.  Personally I know a practice of focusing on gratitude is one of the fastest ways to improve your life in all ways.  Here are some familiar words.  Thoughts are things. Energy follows attention.  What you focus on increases.  As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. (Proverbs 23:7)   It seems to me that someone with a grateful heart is likely to think and speak in such a way that all those around that person benefit.

One of the wonderful signs of the times is that medicine and psychology are more and more studying what makes people healthy instead of just how to heal problems.  If you have been on a spiritual path for any length of time you will have heard a lot about the power and importance of gratitude.  Here is an excerpt from an article published by the University of Texas.  To read the entire article, follow this link.  http://www.uthealthleader.org/archive/mind_body_soul/2007/gratitude-1121.html

STORY BY Drs. Blair and Rita Justice

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
— John Henry Jowett

"If you start practicing now, (October) you could be grateful by Thanksgiving. Not only that, your marriage could improve, you might be exercising more, feel less depressed, sleep better, have a healthier heart, more life satisfaction, and increase your chances of living longer.

This may sound like a late-night ad that comes with a free set of steak knives (...and that’s not all!), but a growing body of research shows that gratitude is truly amazing in its physical and psychosocial benefits. The benefits are so great, in fact, that it’s a wonder “gratitude gyms” aren’t already being franchised.

Robert A. Emmons, PhD, professor of psychology at University of California, Davis, pioneer in the research on gratitude and one of the leading scholars in positive psychology, is author of Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. What makes gratitude the “magic ingredient” is that it takes us outside ourselves so that we can see how we are part of the larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships -- relationships that are reciprocal."

If you have never engaged in an extended gratitude practice, give yourself a Christmas gift and start one now.  You just might find 2012 to be the best year of your life.  Remember, what you focus on increases!