Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Happy for No Reason Practicing Gratitude

Greetings,

I purchased the audio book Happiness For No Reason, as well as the parliminal cd of the same name. I really resonated with the core ideas of the book. I've made happiness for no reason one of my top goals.
One of the pieces of my action plan is to practice the gratitude exercise periodically during the day. I even got a gratitude rock, but alas I can't find it right now. Ha!! Some times mentally reviewing things I can feel grate full for seems to work better, making me feel grateful in that moment, than others. I've been thinking about ways I could improve the quality and strength of my state of gratitude .
One idea I had was to act in a way someone feeling grateful would. I remember in one of Tony Robbins programs he says the one of the quickest ways to create a state in any moment is to move, talk and generally behave like an actor would portraying a person experiencing the desired state. An example he gives for attaining a powerful confident state consists for of walking around pretending like your Superman, strong powerful posture, shoulders erect and back, looking slightly up, chest out, etc.... The idea then is then when your reaching the peak of the the state to anchor it to some trigger so it can be fired off when you desire to feel that state in the future.
I have a few ideas of my own on how a person experiencing gratitude would act , but would appreciate reading others ideas on how people act when they're experiencing gratitude.

What posture would the body have? What body tempo does gratitude have? How is one breathing? What's the tone, tempo and volume of the voice? What sort of facial expressions would there be? Would the hands be still or moving, posed in a certain way. Would the head be looking up, down or straight ahead. What sort of things would a person say? How might I know observing a person if they are in a state of gratitude?

These are the sort of questions I'm currently ponder.

Steve

I listened to one of Oprah's Soul Series broadcast, which I downloaded from her website. She interviewed Sarah Ben Breathnach, who over ten years ago started the idea of the gratitude journal. I have started one myself. You can check out on her on website: http://www.simpleabundance.com/homepub.html

I simply write 5 things down on my journal: they represents events during the day I am grateful for. If I miss opportunities, then I look into the past.

Out of my own I have also added 3 people I want to forgive for that they have done to me in the past.

I do not follow any posture, etc.

All of those things you mentioned sound wonderful. My question is do you always feel grateful when journaling about the things your are grateful for? Sometimes I think of things I am grateful for but don't really feel grateful in that moment. It seems that if I'm not in a very resourceful state to begin with, the grateful feelings may not come at all, or are weak. To me feeling the gratitude is key.

I suppose practicing forgiveness, releasing, and some type of energy work first might help to move me to a place where I can practice feeling gratitude more successfully.

As far as posture,I'm not referring to a prayer, meditation or martial arts stance. If you think of two situations one where you were feeling happy and grateful and another where you feel angry hurt, etc... Are you breathing in the same way (slow/fast) (deep/Shallow) in both? Is your body more tense in one state compared to the other. If you're speaking out loud or in your mind do you say the same sort of things in the same tone of voice? Is what you're feeling in your body the same? Do you relate to people in the same way? If you looked at
pictures of yourself in these situations would the expressions on your face be similar?

These are the thing I was writing about. Thanks for responding/

Steve

I am trying to answer your questions:

I do feel grateful while I am journaling. Since I do it at the end of each day or on the following morning, during the day I now tend to look for what I can be grateful for. I think this puts me into a positive frame of mind and assists in making others around me feel happy when I interact with them. I believe that feeling acknowledged through thank-you's by a person makes a person feel better.

I do not have much of a social life at the moment, so I do not go out much. I still believe that the simple awareness of trying to find things you can be grateful for is a step in the right direction. If the deep feelings of gratefulness do not come up at the start, I suggest that you still make an attempt to be grateful. Your state of mind will slowly change with persistence towards your goal, which is being grateful. Out of that I believe more benefits will be gained in terms of quality of life.

I think overall our body behaves according to the conditions of our mind. I do believe that our body language mirrors our feelings and triggers a response from people around us. So I do breathe more deeply when I am relaxed. I mostly speak inside my mind, not aloud even if I am mostly alone during the day. In my mind I talk about my problems and how to solve them. However, I have come to the conclusion that a follow-up on paper is essential for my ideas to work out through appropriate actions.

When I am upset or worried, I tend to appear sad or at least very quiet. I am a rather outgoing person under normal conditions.

I have had a positive effect by using a combination of the Happy for No Reasons Paraliminal and the book with the same title.

My main problem is that I am a big procrastinator, so I postpone all unpleasant duties, ie mostly those which would actually help to change my current situation. This sounds rather crazy, but I am working on this to move ahead in my life.

I hope you can find something useful in my message.

I've been listening to the Paraliminal, reading the book and listening to the audio book for around a month. I spend at least 5 to 15 minutes a day thinking of things I am grateful for.

I don't really have a problem thinking of things to be grateful for or writing them down. The issue is that just thinking or writing about them isn't always enough to make me feel very grateful. Often, I feel spontaneously grateful, but grateful on purpose doesn't always work for me. I am hoping you are correct that with time and patience I will improve. It seems the better I feel to begin with, the easier it is.

I agree that the body generally "mirrors" what's going on in the mind, but it's a two way street. The way you move your body, breath, the facial expressions, etc, strongly influence your mind. For instance many types of meditation and trace techniques, have you breath deeply, and relax your body, because it helps to calm your mind. If you purposely act in an angry way for a period of time you'll likely start to feel angry and start thinking of things to be angry about.

I am grateful you responded to my message. You did give me somethings to think about. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments, adbsteve.

Since we cannot have much control on what happens outside us, calming down in the face of unpleasant situations becomes essential. So breathing according to different spiritual techniques is most helpful. It is important to avoid adding emotional baggage to the one we have been carrying for years and will hopefully release one day.

Getting angry is no more than hooking into the negative energy of another person, group of people or situations. This is why acceptance becomes important. You let things be OK, even if they are not.

I am not sure that I agree that your posture, breath, facial expression, etc influences your mind. I like to see it the other way around. If you have inner strength built through years of practicing different spiritual techniques, your external appearance will remain positive regardless of what surrounds you. In some circumstances, people who want to hurt you emotionally will find your inner strength disarming and will not trying to persist in their actions against you.

I see the benefit of exchanging messages on here as a way forward for all of us. We are lucky that the internet allows us to interact potentially with almost any person on the planet.

I have just finished reading Happy for No Reason and I think its such a great book. I try to practice gratitude by keeping a journal. I am also trying to practice loving kindness.

Does anyone want to share how they use their gratitude journal and how it has helped them?

AlexK

I believe it has helped me to become more forgiving. I also think that it is slowly unlocking my life.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I would ask other members who have experienced it to reply to you.At present I haven't experienced gratitude so I don't know how they would react. I would share my experience with you when I experience it.

Thanks,
Lakshmi