❤️ What happens when you make gratitude a part of your life?

I’ve been working on adding gratitude as a habit for much of 2021. In this blog I have gathered some of my thoughts and insights from my Instagram Captions to share with you…including the NEW MONEY MINDSET HABIT I hope to develop in 2022.

You’ll discover from these posts that gratitude is a life changer, a mood changer and an all round great attitude and focus to have in order to feel more joy in your life, just as it is. 

❤️ What happens when you make gratitude a part of your life? 

Feb 18, 2021

Well I have no idea, but I am willing to find out.

I was talking to my talented friend and colleague @reneewalkerwellness yesterday and just heard myself moaning. 😞

I didn’t realize how unhappy I was feeling until I actually started to talk about it.

The last thing I want is to burden those I love with my low mood.

It got me thinking, if I am not feeling happy, grateful or thankful for my life, what am I doing?

💡 I’m taking things for granted.

I’ve become unconscious to all the amazement around me. Instead, I am focused on the bad stuff, the hard stuff, the grey stuff. I am taking the good stuff for granted. I haven’t said a “thank you” in a long time.

For sure, I have fallen into some bad habits. Too much NEWS — none of it good. Too much worrying about the future — most of it out of my control.

❤️ Today is Day 1 of my Gratitude Experiment.

March 1, 2021

Today, I will start giving thanks for all the things I have been blind to, the warm water of my shower, the sweater that keeps me warm, the roof over my head that keeps the snow outside, and my view, my truly amazing view.

I started this post by asking what happens when you make gratitude a part of your life?

Well, let’s see!

❤️ What happens when you make Gratitude a part of your life?

Well, last week I said I had no idea but was willing to find out.

And so here is something I learned about gratitude.

It requires two big things:

⓵ Staying mindful

⓶ Opening my heart

🧘🏾‍♀️ Staying mindful. Honestly, I can go through a day so easily, completely unaware of all the wonders and magic of my life. If you remember from last week, I talked about how the opposite of gratitude was taking things for granted. I realized that if I am not intentional about finding things to be grateful for, I wander through the day in a bit of a trance. I don’t really take notice.

And so, to remedy that, along with a list of the ten things I am grateful for each morning, I tried to wake up and be grateful every time I remembered.

That meant being grateful for the beautiful tulips by my meditation chair more than once a day. It meant being grateful for clean water in my glass (that’s apple cider vinegar that gives it a little colour 😊) all day long.

It’s really a practise. And a worthwhile one I can say because my unhappiness is lifting.

💗 Opening my heart. I’ve learned a lot these last years about keeping my heart open. That means, I take a moment to focus my attention on my heart centre and then imagine it opening.

This is a practise I learned from my study of Michael A Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul.

He talks about how old energy can get stuck and close the energy flow of the heart centre. The result, pain, unhappiness, blandness.

Gratitude is all about keeping my heart open because when it’s open, my gratitude just flows about everything.

It feels natural, uncontrived and unforced.

But when my heart is closed. Ouch! I just hurt.

What closes our hearts? We do.

Especially when we think the world is not unfolding as we want it to. This is huge. A closed heart is a resistant heart. Resistance causes the pain. Learning to allow life to be what it is without our judgments is a practise for a lifetime.

There you go. My learnings so far from my Gratitude Experiment.

I’d say it’s going well. ❤️

❤️ What happens when you make gratitude a part of your life?

March 1, 2021

So far so very good. I feel so much lighter, better, and happier.

Every day, I am so very grateful for the gift of another day.

Especially today.

😞 It would have been my sister-in-law’s 77th birthday today.

Every day, when I say thank you for another day, I think of her and a few other close friends and family who would be delighted to have another day to spend together.

🌎 It gives me the perfect perspective to deal with my life with gratitude in my heart.

It allows me to joke and make light of last week’s challenges…

– finding I had a flat tire as I walked to my car,

– getting a notice about a violation from my tenant re parking.

– but wait

– there’s more…

– being locked out of my CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) Account and getting cut off after 2.5 hours on hold. (very lovely music)

And I am grateful for it all. Grateful to be alive and well enough to deal with what the flow of life brings me.

It all got sorted out. And I am grateful for all of that. The amazing CAA service that made it all so easy, my amazing property managers who handle everything, and the 45 mins wait that eventually got me right with the authorities.

And that’s my gratitude experiment update.

🙏🏽 My Gratitude Experiment

March 1, 2021

Today is a gift, not a guarantee!

I found a short letter today that was written by my father. It wasn’t addressed to me. It was to his brother, my uncle and his family who lived in Florida at the time.

The letter was hidden among some old family pictures.

I was very touched to see his familiar handwriting and to read some news about his life at the time.

I was saddened too.

He wrote about being alone, and finding ways to get out to be with more people to alleviate the pain of it.

My poor dad!

He’s been gone a long time, nearly 30 years. But his memory is strong as it is with so many who aren’t alive anymore.

Which brings me to my greatest learning from my gratitude experiment.

✨ Today is a gift, not a guarantee. ✨

Each morning I send love to those I love who do not have the gift of today.

It helps me to cherish this day even more and open my heart to whatever it brings. (Like a massive tech fail five minutes ago 😱.)

Gotta laugh, let it go and be grateful that I am here today to waste my time on it.

What a privilege. ❤️

✨ It is so easy to fall back into taking life for granted.

March 1, 2021

Do you find that? 

I am intentionally focused on noticing all the things I can be grateful for on a daily basis and yet…👀 there are hours and hours that go by that seem to bring my joy quotient way down. 

Like I’m asleep at the wheel of life. 💤It amazes me how much awareness and being awake this process requires.It’s almost like I can only take so much happiness before I shut down. My upper limits problem. 💯

But this gratitude practise never disappoints. Once I get back on track, my heart just opens like magic and joy is present. 

By the way, if you are enjoying this blog, why not join my Community. Here is a link to be a part of my newsletter and special announcement emails. You’ll also get a FREE PDF of The 3 Secrets to Becoming a Confident Entrepreneur. You can use this link right here…

Started Feb. 17/2021

✨I posed the question, “What happens when you make gratitude a part of your life?” 

September 9

“Guess we’ll see,” was my answer to myself..So let’s see.I’m happier. Plain and simple. 

I’m pleasantly surprised. I just wasn’t sure of a few things, would I keep it up, and would it make a difference. 

Yes and Yes. 

And now I’ve found another cool thing about gratitude.

Focusing on what I am grateful for when the dark cloud of negative thinking floats by, lifts the cloud and puts me right back into the warmth of the sun. 

Gratitude…I think I’ll keep it.

And today marks the day I wrote on the last page of my bright read Moleskine journal. Already purchased my new one!!!. Always excited to start a new book!!!!

✨Business Tip✨

If you’re having trouble attracting clients to your business, or you’re feeling discouraged in any way, remember to start with your inner work. .

OCT 7

Try shifting from a Scarcity mindset to an Abundance mindset by using Gratitude.

After a few weeks, then months, and hopefully years of daily gratitude, your whole life will change. 

We all take so much for granted. Every time I feel discouraged or even overwhelmed in my business I think, “Did I say thank you for all that I have right now in my life?” 

I have been employed in a gratitude experiment since February of 2021. And it’s changed my life. I am happier. I have more energy. And I feel excited about my future because my present is so beautiful and fulfilling.Did anything actually change? Not really.I just started to appreciate all that I already had. You’ve got to do it. And you’ve got to do it daily, and forever. I’m not kidding. Our brain will just go right back to seeing lack and negativity if we don’t exercise it every day. It only takes a few minutes.It really is one of the best business tips I know of!. So right now…What three things are you grateful for at this moment? And why? These make you grateful because….

Gratitude is a powerful tool to have in your entrepreneurial tool kit. And by the way, thank you for reading. 🙏🏼

✨ How’s Your Joy These Days? ✨

October 29

Since working on my gratitude practise every day, my joy has increased. I mean, I was driving the other day with the window open while the sun was shining on a lovely stretch of city road and found myself as happy as could be.I felt the way I might driving into a sunset on the Pacific Coast Highway in LA. Or winning the Lottery!Or coaching someone to a huge success!

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” A Proverb.

🧠 You see, thoughts of gratitude and appreciation enhance our dopamine and serotonin response in our limbic system. These neurotransmitters are considered responsible for feelings of happiness. Serotonin is what antidepressants aim to regulate. Are you ready to start your own Gratitude Experiment?.

✨ My Gratitude Experiment

December 7

Focusing on thoughts and feelings of gratitude has been truly life-changing.

Funny, that word…life-changing.

It sounds a little grand when I write it. And yet, I feel my life has changed. 💯

💥To be more clear, my inner life has changed. 💥

Creating a gratitude practise as a habit has resulted in me being happier. Plain and simple.

I am using this blog as a way to say thank you to my own practise and to move on to a new practise. Because gratitude has now become a habit, I am ready to move on to creating something new.

And this habit, this experiment is going to be about my Money Mindset. 🤑 This year, I want to explore what a focused spiritual approach to money and affluence would look like and what it might result in.

I am doing this partially for myself of course, but also for the wonderful women who I meet in my work who are struggling to go out into the world, to express what is most likely their Dharma or life purpose but have a lot of fear around money, specifically, not having enough.

I think this is a very deep topic.

Hopefully, sharing my own Money Mindset Experiment will help you. I really hope so.

Thanks for reading,  Lisa

Don’t forget, if you are enjoying this blog, why not join my Community. Here is a link to be a part of my newsletter and special announcement emails. You’ll also get a FREE PDF of The 3 Secrets to Becoming a Confident Entrepreneur. You can use this link right here…