Your User’s Guide to Gratitude – what the gurus don’t tell you and 50 deceptively gorgeous blessings to tune into

Greetings!

(Please note there is only a week to go until the start of the Pure Coaching Academy Autumn term – a few places left – keep reading) *

Anyone who has sniffed a self-help book looking for the secret of joy or Googled “how can I stop feeling lower than a Dachshund’s tum?” will know that there is one holy grail word that pops up with whack-a-mole rapidity and that is – gratitude.

As a recovering misery guts this gratitude shtick, I must fess up, was a concept that used to rankle.

Knowing someone in a nearby hospital is struggling for breath in an iron lung did zero to make me feel better or grateful about breathing. In fact, it made me reach for the nutcracker to help break into a smile while I guilt-tripped and headed for the duvet dive. Using other people’s bad luck as a boost to one’s own mood is a toxic tonic with serious hangovers.

However, what we take for granted – even the ability to breathe freely, is not to be negated. Thus, I decided this gratitude as cheer-all, quick-fix needed redefining.

What a lot of gratitude gurus don’t tell you is that you need to know how to use the magic wand of blessings in a way that really makes it meaningful and delivers results. Life can be humdrum and “meh” and taking time out to notice, relish and feel blessed is the “batteries not included” bit that was missing.

When we mindfully notice how far we have come, what we have gathered around us or inherited, sought and secured, created and maintained, things become more nuanced. A deeper appreciation of ourselves and our unique life and circumstances come to the fore. 

The hamster wheel stops, black and white turns to Technicolor and we see things differently - and Specsavers played no part.

The striving for more, to feel in deficit and the relentless pushing forward into the future rubbishes the now; which is all we have.

If you want to supercharge your gratitude practice but don’t know where to start here’s a quick user’s guide.

• Write down three things in the morning you are grateful for that day and do the same in the evening. What were the highlights?

Stuck for ideas other than “I’m still here” then here is a Gratitude Guide for all things magically mundane but deceptively gorgeous:

Your at a glance gratitude check list

• Cat’s purr/puppy breath
• Supermarket check-out chat
• Leftover pizza
• Happy hour
• Looser fitting jeans
• Getting a bargain
• A new pot plant
• Great literature
• The kindness of strangers
• The opportunity to show kindness
• Eating dessert first
• Hot showers with great products
• Hugs and kisses
• A duvet day
• Sweet smelling laundry on the line on a fine day
• Dead heading in the garden or house
• Pottering
• Creative loafing with nothing in the diary
• A message from a friend from long ago
• Someone daring to reach out
• Marx Brothers’ movies or Adventure Time (you will be either too young or too old to know the joy of these)
• A genuine apology
• A good pen and lovely stationery
• Compliments
• A convenient parking space
• No check-out queues
• Someone actually being helpful at customer services
• Long bath, book, candle and a glass of wine
• Not being in pain
• Unexpected windfalls
• People “treating” you for a change
• Change of season
• Online shopping
• Firelight
• Slow cooker meals
• Cashmere
• Perfume
• Girls’ night out
• Cocktails
• House to yourself
• The smell of coffee brewing
• Winning an argument – yess!
• Soup
• Nice underwear
• New socks
• Walk in nature
• Gorgeously impractical footwear
• Laughter
• Sorting out an old jewellery box
• Realising you feel peaceful and worry free 

Please send me your unusual things you are grateful for and I will flag them up next week. I would love to know them.



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