Why Gratitude is not Easy, but Boy is it Worth it!

“My journey towards leading a more Grateful and Positive life was prompted by my “inner self”, that voice in your head that keeps gently pushing you towards something you should be doing. I was not greatly unhappy in life, but I know I was living in mediocrity.” Delysia Naidoo

The following story, shared by Delysia Naidoo, is an extremely profound illustration of a first-hand experience of what gratitude does for a person and how it can be cultivated in oneself.

“I had read the book entitled “The Secret”, that spoke about positive affirmations and how to condition your mind to only see the outcome of what you desire and believe with your whole being that you have acquired that very object, in essence “like attracting like”, I always thought the notion was fantastic (who wouldn’t want everything they ever wanted!!). I found this exercise very difficult though because I always struggled to avoid  focusing on the how question. I always needed to see the map before the journey to know if it is achievable and “The Secret” teaches you to throw away the map and trust you will find your way!!

What became absolutely apparent to me is that  re-conditioning your mind’s characteristic manner of thinking is very hard to achieve. It is for this reason I decided that starting a “Gratitude Journal” is such a great idea!

I started mine a couple years ago in 2013, I bought a hard cover book which I covered and labelled, “My Book of Positivity”. I dated each entry so I could always reflect back on that day, which always made me smile! Every morning before I started my day, with my cup of coffee (which I was very grateful to have!) I started jotting down what I was grateful for on that day. It could be big things that I received or the simplest of things, such as having fresh, clean water to drink! After writing these 10 positive affirmations, I would read them out and after each one say the words THANK YOU and these are probably the most positive words you can ever use! They have always been considered the Magic Words and truly are that. Because when you are sincerely grateful for what you have, you will always be blessed with abundance.

Looking at my completed book of positive affirmations, it fills me with such immense joy and warmth to know that in each day there is beauty, and there is something to be happy about. Doing this over time will definitely change the way you see the world and in doing so will change your life in a very positive way!”

Being grateful has tremendous benefits for us. Delysia’s experience is one which has been verified by studies which have shown that gratitude has a huge impact on our happiness. One study, discussed in this article, found that increasing one’s level of gratitude will directly impact one’s sense of well-being and happiness. Spiritual leaders have also recognized the value of gratitude, as is illustrated by the views of David Stendl-Rast.

Gratitude has other benefits, beyond making us happy. Another benefit of gratitude is that it enables generosity. Gratitude does not only benefit the person who is grateful, it also benefits people around him/her because they become more generous. We can see how gratitude enables generosity if we have a look at the way in which a grateful person experiences what they have. When a person is grateful they experience themselves as having more than enough. They are grateful because they feel like life has given them more than their fair share, they experience themselves as being the recipient of kindness. It is easy for someone who experiences appreciation for what they have to share what they have. Generosity flows naturally from gratitude because the grateful person has the feeling that they are themselves the recipient of kindness.

Generosity is much easier for a grateful person than it is for a resentful person. A resentful person will feel like they have not been given enough, they will feel like they have been done in. It is very difficult for a person who feels like this to share what they have. We see then that generosity flows from gratitude and selfishness flows from resentment.

Now, as an interesting matter of fact, human beings seem to find resentment much easier to come by than gratitude. Human beings have a tendency towards experiencing the negative in things and ignoring the positive. There is scientific evidence for this claim. Allison Ledgerwood has conducted studies which support it. Allison’s studies show us that people find it much easier to focus on the negatives than on the positives. Focusing on the negatives comes more naturally to us and when have become aware of the negatives we struggle to forget about them, even if we have a bunch of positives listed to us:

Given the value of being grateful and also the scientific fact that we tend towards resentment, it seems that we have very good reason to be deliberate about cultivating gratitude in ourselves.

Delysia’s story is so profound because it gives us an example of how we should go about trying to do this and also shows us the benefits doing this can have. Delysia has given us a real life example of how we can start to become better at recognizing the positives and start becoming more grateful.

By her own testimony, doing so helped her become more grateful which has in turn enabled her to be more generous. As Delysia herself put it “Generosity does not require the giver to have a lot, it just requires that the giver is grateful so they can share what they do have.”[1]