#40daysofgratitude2017

Day Thirty-Five – Gratitude, a way of life - -      This year life challenged me more than it ever has before. It brought many challenges my way, a lot of which I didn’t think I could deal with or get pass. With all of the challenges it brought it gave me a life like. Universal messages and gratitude were my life line. From the beautiful sunflowers outside my window that made me smile every morning I saw them, to the butterflies flying around my yard and being messages of transformation, strength, help and light, to the messages of expressing gratitude daily, they were my saving grace and the reasons I was able to keep going during a time I wanted to stand still and fall apart. - -        Gratitude had to become a way of life for me. When gratitude becomes our way of life it consumes us and we express it all the time. It fills our thoughts and guides our actions throughout the day. It is our first expression every day and our last expression every night. Being grateful and expressing that gratitude has to become so much a part of who we are that we can’t get through a day without taking the time to be and express gratitude, whether it’s to someone who did something good or nice for us or whether it is for some other thing that we either saw or experienced that made our day even the slightest bit better, even if it’s just a flower we see that made us smile. As a way of life gratitude becomes an automatic response, a movement and expression of the heart that flows as a result of being touched. #40daysofgratitude #40daysofgratitude2017 #gratitude #gratefulheart #Gratefulnesshabit #grateful #thankful #givingthanks #giving #photos #photography #graphics #graphicdesigner #graphicdesign #photographer #positivevibes #motivation #motivational #gratefulness #thanks #snow

Day Twenty-Two – The Saving Grace of Gratitude             When I started this journey of gratitude, of daily writing down five things that I was grateful for I was in a dark place.  I was going through dealing with the loss of several family members as well as other things in my life that was not working out. I felt lost, disillusioned and extremely sad. I’d lost focus and the will to continue working on my dreams and business. There just seemed to be no point to it all. As bad as things seemed all I could do was daily ask God to get me through it because I know I wasn’t going to be able to on my own. It was then that He and life and nature itself started to speak to me. He started bringing things to my attention and in my path to help me to find myself, my focus, my drive and my will again. It was during this time that I was reminded about gratitude and how powerful it can be to just focus on being grateful and writing daily five things that I was grateful for.           Along with being reminded about the importance of gratitude I discovered a book in my dad’s closet called “The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.” Between the wisdom of that book, teaching me the importance of being present and aware in each day, and the effects of going through each day expecting and looking for things to be grateful for I found myself and my point of view changing. I stopped focusing so much on what was going wrong or bad and started noticing all the good that I had in my life that I would have never seen or known had I stayed focused on all that was seemingly going wrong. Thorough all of it I learned that we are never alone, that God had always got us no matter how bad things may seem at the time. That if we in earnest and faith call out to Him, He will answer and come to our aid. He will make the universe move on our behalf just to help us get through; all we need to do is ask and believe. #40daysofgratitude #40daysofgratitude2017 #gratitude #gratefulheart #Gratefulnesshabit #grateful #thankful #givingthanks #giving #photos #photography #graphics #graphicdesigner #graphicdesign #photographer #positivevibes #motivation #motivational #gratefulness #thanks

Day Eighteen – Remembering to be grateful           Gratitude is a powerful tool to change the circumstances of one’s life. It, when practiced and mastered can bring about monumental changes and have a profound and lasting affect far beyond the scope of what we can see.           To be blessed with good in this life is something we all look for. We want good for ourselves and when good happens we see it as a sign that the universe and God loves us and that makes us happy. In moments of great joy and happiness, when all is right with our world it’s very easy to forget to be grateful, to forget treasure and to take time to appreciate all the good and all the blessings that we receive. It’s so easy to get caught up in it all that we forget to give thanks. The act of giving thanks is very powerful. It has the power not only to increase that which we already have, but it can also bring even more to us. When feeding the five thousand, Jesus took the five loaves and two fishes and when he had given thanks was able to feed the five thousand, but not only feed them, but was able to fill twelve baskets with what was left over. The act of gratitude for what we have, no matter how small, is an act of power and of tapping in to creative energy. Giving thanks increases what we have and brings even more to us. The more we are thankful the more will be brought for us to be thankful for.           Remember to give thanks, but give it from a heart of sincerity. Thankfulness that is merely lip service will not produce for you. The gratitude we express must come from a place of true thankfulness and appreciation for what we have or have experienced. Feeling a connection to the thing you are grateful for and why goes a long way in producing more in your life. #40daysofgratitude #40daysofgratitude2017 #gratitude #gratefulheart #gratefulnesshabit #grateful #thankful #givethanks #flowers #photos #photography #graphics #graphicdesigner #photographer #graphicdesign #positivevibes #motivation #gratefulness #thanks

Day Sixteen – Gratitude and the Heart of Love           When gratitude becomes our expressed self it clears the heart and mind. In clearing our heart it also opens it up to express from the truth of creation. The basis behind creation is love. Love created the universe. God being love created all there is, thus creation was created by love, with love and because of love. It is the underlying energy of creation. As gratitude opens us up to being aware and present in our day it also opens us up to all of creation. In this openness we can truly feel our connection to the Universal Mind and all there is. In this state of openness love is free to flow into and through us.           The heart of gratitude is the heart of love. In gratitude love is always present and in creating a heart of gratitude through its daily practice, we ultimately create a heart of love; a heart that becomes open to others, that can be empathetic and yearns to help others in any way possible. The reason the heart of gratitude creates in us a desire to help others to have their own moments of gratefulness is because of the love that now flows as we become more open and connected to all there is, to the truth of creation. As gratitude grows and becomes our expressed self, love is free to flow and free to affect and change the world around us. We were created from the expression of love of The Father to be expressions of His love in the earth. When gratitude is our center and all we see is the good our basic desire is to create good for others, which is the true expression of self, the expression of the heart of love. #40daysofgratitude #40daysofgratitude2017 #gratitude #gratefulnesshabit #grateful #gratefulheart #gratefulness #thankful #thanks #gratitudejournal #photography #photo #photographer #beach #positivevibes #graphics #graphicdesigner #graphicdesign

Day Twelve – Gratitude calls the Universe into action When you begin to make gratitude your daily practice your life will have to change accordingly. As you focus on all that you are grateful for the energy of that vibrate out into all of creation. Your focus will become all that you see. When all you see is gratitude, you give gratitude and you strive to create moments for others to be grateful for; when you give gratitude it has no choice but to come back to you in some way, in turn giving you more to be grateful for. It is all a very beautiful and harmonic cycle. As you operate in that cycle the universe takes it, multiplies it and sends it back to you. Gratitude has the power to activate the universe on your behalf. As gratitude becomes a way of life for you, the universe goes to work in your life doing whatever it needs to do to make sure that your life is filled with even more things to be grateful for. As your focus improves, you life follows. The universe is subject to produce more off what you make your focus or what you allow to consume you. The bible says, “As a man thinketh, so is he”. If you are thinking gratitude, then you will find more to be grateful for. When gratitude activates the universe it causes it to operate on an even higher level because what activated it is already high. Start sending out your grateful thoughts and words, if only one grateful thing a day, activate the universe and watch as it performs for you. #40daysofgratitude #40daysofgratitude2017 #gratitude #gratefulnesshabit #grateful #gratitudejournal #gratefulheart #gratefulness #thankful #thanks #nature #flowers #graphics #graphicdesigns #graphicdesign #graphicdesigner #photography #photographer #photo