Using Mindfulness to help busy women build happier and healthier relationships with themselves.: It can be hard to be grateful

So, science says being grateful has mental health and wellbeing benefits!! Hhmm, but what about if you can’t be grateful, what if you are so down that you just can’t feel grateful for anything?

We are told that

● Gratitude opens the door to healthier relationships.

● Gratitude improves physical health.

● Gratitude improves psychological health.

● Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression.

● Grateful people sleep better.

● Gratitude improves self-esteem.

● Gratitude increases mental strength.

And much more too.

So how can we get to a place that allows us to feel grateful? Well, there are a few things we need to understand first.

· The mind has a lot to do with how you feel

· Thoughts constantly intrude and affect our mentality

· Life is not all sunshine and rose even for those who can feel gratitude

· You don’t have to have the perfect life to feel grateful

· Money won’t buy you gratitude

· We live in a world where we are surrounded by negativity

· We are habitual beings

· Our self-talk influences how we think and this effects how we feel

· It takes work

· You can change how you feel

As you can see, there is a quiet lot to understand with much more that we haven’t mentioned just yet. As this is a short article, we won’t get too deep into any one of them, but I’m sure we will cover them in depth in future articles.

The first step is understanding how your mind works. Beginning with the fight/flight response. This is where a part of our brain takes over in times of threat. It controls our instant reaction to different situations, like conflict and safety. However, unfortunately when we instantly react, we do so with little or no awareness, hence the instant reaction. Based on our reactions, we then think and feel certain ways, usually negative.

So, what can we do?

Well, an easy way to begin is to develop awareness, self-awareness. One of the most effective ways to do this is to understand and use mindfulness. Mindfulness and mindful techniques usually will begin with breathing. The reason it begins there is because breathing is something we all do all the time and it is a process that we can actually take control of. Like taking deep breaths, extending and expanding of belly/diaphragm to take real deep breaths. Then continuing to breathe more deeply than we usually do, filling up our lungs and oxygenating or body fully, which helps with natural bodily functions like blood flow etc.

Whilst you are breathing you then bring your focus/awareness to the actual function of breathing and how the air moves in and out of your body and so on. Once you begin to focus on the breath you will probably find that your mind begins to quieten down somewhat. It’s not that you don’t have thoughts, but you have less focus on the thoughts and this allows a sort of calmness to begin for you.

It is with a calmer mind and less focus on thoughts that you can inquire to what am I grateful for right now, in that moment. You see when we can calm down our mind, when we can focus less on the intrusive thoughts it is then that we become fully aware and can process things more clearly, with more clarity.

The business of our minds distracts us form this and engulfs us with all the trials and tribulations we face with no calmness, no clarity, no focus and hence the challenge we then face to have to try to even find something that makes us feel ok never mind grateful.

Why not try it out for yourself and remember, don’t give up after the first try. Expand your mind and the understanding of your mind. The how’s and why’s of our minds. What they do. How we are affected by our thoughts and our mind and how it’s possible to overcome it and gain control.

Thus, enabling you to move forward to a more beneficial way of living.

You just never know perhaps you too may discover