Gratitude saved my life

Gratitude – it saved my life.

I speak about it often. Nearly daily, in fact.

Why?

Cos’ it saved me. How? I hear you ask…

It saved me from me.

It saved me from overthinking the bullshit.
It saved me from over analysing the crap in my life.

Gratitude stopped me from my victim state – which was taking me on the road to no-where.

Gratitude stopped me from being selfish and only thinking about ME and my PROBLEMS.

Gratitude stopped me from being a shitty role model.

It woke me up.

Not recognising GRATITUDE, meant:

It enabled me to use excuses.
It enabled me to ‘stay safe’ in my decision making.
It enabled me to ‘fit in’ with the wrong friends.
It allowed me to whinge and whine.
It allowed me to bitch and moan about that person, that incident, and my circumstances.
It allowed me to gossip and be more interested in other people’s lives more than I should have.

What changed? Did I suddenly watch Oprah and all was fixed? Nope, in fact, I don’t think I have watched that much Oprah… I was listening to an audio-book on a walk one day. I even remember what street it was on when it occurred to me that ‘I HAD A CHOICE’ in the way I felt.

Who knew? I don’t think I had considered this on a sub-conscious level before. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to LISTEN. Perhaps I was so full of my own bullshit stories that I didn’t hear this knocking at my door. I’m going to go with this one, as I think this was it.

I was attached to my stories.
I was attached to my story of woe.
I was attached to my story of BLAH FUCKING BLAH.

So attached, that I didn’t see that I could make a choice at any time.

So, I made a choice.
To reflect on gratitude daily.

I got a notebook and put it next to my bed. I made the decision to write the 10 things I was grateful for (for that day) before I went to sleep.

Was it easy?

Nope.

So. So. So hard.

I was still hanging onto my crappy stories in my head. But day after day, week after week I started to look for things to be grateful for in my book before I went to sleep. There were good and bad days. There were days where I could only be thankful for having arms and legs. And that parking spot out of the rain at the shops.

There were days where my daughter would ‘make’ me finish my 10 things. There were days where it just flowed.

After about 10 days, things shifted. It was like a light was turned on…or someone turned up the brightness on the world. So I kept going.

I still do this, although my routine has changed over the years. Most mornings I lay in bed and thank my body for resting, the bed for being comfy and warm. Thank the universe for having a roof over my head and food in the fridge. I even thank my bladder for making me get up for the loo. I then thank the taps for having running water and so on… do I do this ‘out loud?’ Sometimes! Haha! No, mostly in my head as I wake up and get on with my day. I rarely rush around…it’s a very deliberate start to my day and I don’t have an alarm that screeches in my ear either. I wake to birds singing through an app on my phone. #Truestory

Why am I writing this blog for you today?

Because someone reading it, needs to hear it today.

Plus, it saved my life…and maybe it could save yours.

Emma xx