I started reading this book about Gratitude in the beginning of the year. That was before I was working so much, and before pregnancy and life got a little extra crazy over the summer. Recently, I picked it up again and page after page is filled with what feels like just the right words for my heart.
Gratitude has been a type of life line for me. Its not like my life has been more tragic or more challenging than the average girl. But there has been plenty that could have been an excuse for bitterness or depression.
To me, the choice to look for joy and to be thankful has always made me better. It hasn’t changed the circumstances of my life, but it has changed my outlook so drastically that dealing with those circumstances has been somewhat less painful than it could have been. Instead of giving up, I’ve found that gratitude kept me fighting for hope.
I believe that choosing gratitude and hope is a key ingredient of being a survivor. And life is about surviving and thriving in spite of adverse circumstances, devastating pain or just plain old ordinary exhaustion.
When Gratitude becomes your default setting, life changes.
I loved Choosing Gratitude because tells you not only why you should choose to be grateful, but how to start forming those habits of thanksgiving and letting them permeate your life. It shows you not only how to look for gratitude but how it will make you better if you do. It doesn’t make the pretense that being grateful will keep bad things from happening. That’s unrealistic at best. But choosing gratitude does change you. And always for the better.
To me, as a lover of every day beauty, and finding little things to be thankful for, it was beautiful and refreshing–one of the most hopeful books I’ve read in a while. In a session of exhaustion and stress, it was exactly what I needed to remind me of all the reasons why I should keep choosing to look at everything I have to be grateful for. It’s a book that I think will be going on my small list of real inspirational treasures.
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Want to read it? You can get Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy from amazon. Click the link to visit the page.
