How Gratitude Affects You

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so Grateful for you to be part of our community! Thank you for allowing us to be in your lives!

With Love, Kris & Bill Barney

Here is our message for you today.

How Gratitude Affects You

When was the last time you were a recipient of someone else’s gratitude and felt the joy in your heart as you felt the Power of Gratitude?

Receiving gratitude immediately changes the way you feel. Imagine what it can do for you when you are the giver of Gratitude. Let’s jump into this topic and find out “How Gratitude Affects You.”

Our family has had the opportunity to participate in Sub-for-Santa projects for the last 38 years. This has always been done anonymously and each time we worked out the logistics of the family’s needs and the children’s wishes through an intermediary contact.

Late Christmas Eve, Santa delivers bags of gifts, clothing, food and goodies. Most of the time we would never hear back from the families because they only knew a contact person who was sworn to secrecy as to our identity. But occasionally we would get a letter back through the contact person. Most of these letters started with, I can’t begin to tell you how much your kindness has meant to

our family…” That gratitude has meant so much to us and these letters are precious keepsakes. Every time I think of one of these letters, everything inside of me shifts for the better and it makes me want to do more to serve others.

The Power of Receiving Gratitude is tremendous. It will lift your heart, improve your attitude and outlook. Gratitude inspires you to do more. The only downside to The Power of Receiving Gratitude is that you cannot choose when you will get it. If you ask someone for their gratitude, it is not the same and you generally end up feeling worse, no matter what they say.

The Power of Living in Gratitude is less obvious. Living in Gratitude is much more than just remembering to say thank you. It is focusing your efforts on having an attitude of gratitude. Living in Gratitude is a way of being, it is a mindset, it is the way you do life. Although the effects of Living in Gratitude are less obvious, they are much more powerful. You feel it deep within you and when you are living this way, it attracts abundance to you from all areas.

The following are some of the benefits of living in gratitude:

• Living in Gratitude enhances your emotional health. Gratitude reduces negative emotions, like envy, resentment, frustration, and anger. Multiple scientific studies have shown a conclusive link between gratitude and overall well-being. Research confirms that living in gratitude increases happiness and reduces depression.

• Living in Gratitude increases your resiliency. Research proves that gratitude not only reduces stress, it can also be a huge part of the healing process in overcoming trauma. A 2006 study published in Behavior Research and Therapy found that Vietnam War Veterans with higher levels of gratitude experienced lower rates of PTSD. Recognizing all you have to be thankful for, even during the worst times of your life, will help you be more resilient.  

• Living in Gratitude will help you win friends and influence people. Remember to say thank you and send gratitude notes and acknowledge other’s contributions. One of the greatest compliments that can be paid to a person, is to have someone say, “I like the way I feel when I’m around you.

• Living in Gratitude heightens empathy and reduces aggression. Grateful people are more likely to be more kind to people even when others behave poorly. In a study by the University of Kentucky. Participants who ranked higher on gratitude scales were less likely to retaliate against others, even when given negative feedback. They experienced more sensitivity and empathy toward other people and a decreased desire to seek revenge.

• Living in Gratitude helps people sleep better. When we take a moment before going to bed, to reflect on the things for which we are grateful – we go to sleep with positive thoughts and emotions. Many people go to bed thinking about the negative things going on in their life and all the items on their to-do list. If you use this time to write in a gratitude journal, you are more likely to go sleep faster and get a restful night of sleep.

• Unconditional Love and Gratitude change everything! As a practitioner of Emotional Wellness and Energy Medicine, I, Bill, help people to get better by balancing many different energies. I have found there are 2 emotions that make all the difference in whether an individual’s situation improves. Those are the twin emotions of Unconditional Love and Gratitude. It is impossible to unconditionally love someone and not feel gratitude at the same time and vice-a-versa. Whenever a client gets stuck in the process of letting go of a negative emotion or energy; I always stop what we are doing and get them to focus on Unconditional Love and Gratitude. Invariably, the negative energies melt away under the powerful forces of Unconditional Love and Gratitude.

There is great power in Gratitude. Life goes better with Gratitude.

We want to take this time to express our Gratitude to you who are part of our All Things Possible Community. Although we may have never met in person – thank you for associating with us. Thank you for reading our blogs and watching our videos. We love you and you are important to us. We are Grateful for you!