Gratitude Day 8

Welcome To Day #8 of 21 Days of Gratitude

(the link above will take you to the original website where this post was taken from)

I promised that I would be blending information from hard sciences along with insights from metaphysics in our daily gratitude messages.

With this in mind, can you discern who (a scientist or a spiritual philosopher) might have said the following?

"You have — within you — the fuel to thrive and to flourish, and to leave this world in better shape than you found it. Sometimes you tap into this fuel - other times you don’t. But the sad fact is that most people have no idea how to tap into this fuel or even recognize it when they do. Where is this fuel within you?

You tap into it whenever you feel energized and excited by new ideas.
You tap into it whenever you feel at one with your surroundings, at peace.
You tap into it whenever you feel playful, creative, or silly.
You tap into it whenever you feel your soul stirred by the sheer beauty of existence.
You tap into it whenever you feel connected to others and loved.

In short, you tap into it whenever positive emotions resonate within you."

Would it surprise you to learn that the mission statement above is copied directly from the web site for “The Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill”? (Site: http://www.unc.edu/peplab )

Purpose statement for the Lab:

“Our goal is to uncover the universal recipe for human flourishing and to give this recipe as a gift to the world. Our science to date tells us that genuine positive emotions may in fact be the single most important active ingredient in this recipe for flourishing. When this ingredient is lacking, or in poor supply - people get stuck. They lose their freedom of choice. They become stagnant and painfully predictable. But when this ingredient is in ample supply - people take off. They become generative, creative, resilient, ripe with possibility and beautifully unpredictable.

Obviously, as we have emphasized over and over again in this 21 day project, “gratitude” is a feel-good emotion.

The more that you can consciously induce the emotional experience of “gratitude” the better off you will be - as far as health, relationships and business success.

In “Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier“, Robert Emmons Ph.D. even goes as far as to say,

“Happiness can add as much as nine years to one’s life expectancy. What about net worth? A longitudinal study of college students found that happiness levels in college predicted income sixteen years later. The most cheerful students earned $25,000 more per year than their most dour classmates.”

Hopefully, sharing this information today has served to reinforce your commitment to the 21-day gratitude practice.

So, in addition to your daily gratitude journaling, today we want to encourage you to also begin playing “The Appreciation Game.”

The Appreciation Game:

The Law of Attraction guarantees that we will draw toward us the energetic equivalent of what we are sending out. Today, make a game of finding positive aspects of the people, opportunities and events in your life. Begin the game by stating “What I like about _____ is….” and let your imagination run wild.

In the comments section below, write three elongated sentences that begin with the phrase: “What I like about _____ is….”

“Appreciate anything - even if it seems silly. Look around you for something to appreciate. Look at a lamp and appreciate Thomas Edison. Look at the carpet and be glad it’s not cement. Look at a chair and be happy you don’t have to sit on the floor all the time. Appreciate yourself for trying to appreciate. Anything can be appreciated.” — Doc Lew Childre

We’ll reveal more about the benefits of “appreciation” this week.

Appreciating you!

Elyse Hope Killoran
President,  Prosperity from the Inside-Out