The power of thanks

I’ve been thinking lately about gratitude. About the difference it makes and the way it can change your life.

For two years in a row now I’ve taken part in M.A.D. Woman’s Grateful in April initiative. The initiative requires you to express gratitude for one thing every day in April and post it publically. It’s amazing how shifting your focus in this small way can bring greater happiness – not just to ourselves but to others we interact with. It’s a small but powerful expression of good.

Then a couple of weeks ago I came upon a book in the bookstore that I felt compelled to buy. It’s called ‘The Magic’. It’s by the same woman who wrote ‘The Secret’. I didn’t altogether love the way ‘The Secret’ was written or mapped out but I felt compelled by this book. Turns out it’s all about gratitude. About how expressing gratitude can change your life.

That compelled me to try something new. So every day, I express gratitude for the things I find in my path. I thank the universe for trees, for the sky, for birds, for roads, for the people I love, for my sweetheart, for my sister, for my dad and his improving health, for my mum,, for lunch boxes, for the internet, for my friends, for my impro community, for the lessons I learn and the challenges I face, for the way those challenges help me to grow, for my job, for my work colleagues, for the grass, for the ants, for my cat, for beautiful clouds, for gorgeous ocean views, for the natural world, for wildlife, for videos of cute animals, for the dolphins Chris and I saw in Queensland, for Elvis the black cockatoo… you get the picture. I can’t ever run out of things to be grateful for. There’s just too much.

It’s improved my mental health to no end and I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface of how gratitude can change your life.

That brings me to something that happened today that feels connected somehow – an expression of affirmation for the power of gratitude.

Avaaz sent me an email today. Avaaz sends me lots of emails. Some I read. Some I delete.

This one I was about to delete and would have if I hadn’t been running late to pick up my sister for work this morning. So I didn’t. I left it, thinking I would delete it later on when I got in front of the computer.

Except when I saw it sitting in my inbox I was compelled to read it. It was about an Avaaz member in England called Ria. She’s 65 and dying of terminal cancer. Her message was simple – it was a message of thanks for the peace and comfort it gave her in her condition to be part of a global community focused on changing the world for the better.

So Avaaz was inspired to thank her in return by setting up a facility that allowed the Avaaz community – including myself - to send Ria our own messages of hope and inspiration and thanks.

You can take part in this here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/ria_hope/?beXRccb&v=16620

Gratitude for gratitude. I am grateful for gratitude. That was my daily grateful just yesterday. And today it has played out, in real-time, in the most amazing way possible. Thanks to a lady dying of cancer in England.

With one email, Ria has changed the days and possibly the lives of thousands of people around the world. She’s inspired in me a hope that if there can be so many of us who share this desire for love and harmony, that the world is not so doomed after all. The world is not doomed at all.

I am grateful for gratitude. I am grateful for Ria.

The thing about gratitude is that once you start down its path, you notice how often and how unthinkingly we all moan and groan and complain about the smallest things – multiple times through the day on a daily basis. (My colleague next to me right now is complaining again about the incompetence of someone I don’t know. He does this often. Is his tendency to focus on the bad maybe part of the reason why he almost never meets anyone that is any good?)

If we switch this focus, not to ignore the things that upset us, but to focus on the things that don’t. To be consciously thankful for all the things we have that we take for granted in the world, imagine what that switch in energy and focus can do for our lives.

Could it maybe change the world?

Just a thought.