Practicing Gratitude and Forgiveness for Yourself and Others in Your Life
Practicing gratitude and forgiveness brings about positivity, even when it’s hard to stay positive. Make a gratitude list each day and see what happens in your attitude. You don’t have to come up with grand things to be grateful for. If you like the pen you write with, be grateful for that pen. If you’re having a bad day and can’t think of anything, practice being grateful for the oxygen or your pet or your favorite meal.
Expressing Gratitude
Express gratitude for the people in your life. Even if you only have a few, you can build your relationships by letting them know how much they mean to you. It can be difficult to find good friends, and expressing gratitude is a great way to allow even more friendship.
Be authentic. Authenticity breeds joy and stronger relationships with those around you. Check in with yourself and ensure you’re allowing yourself to be seen. You can change your current outlook by balancing your negative thoughts with some positive thoughts.
For example, if you’re thinking, “I will never understand this,” you can replace that thought with, “I am excited to keep learning.” This offers a shift in perspective that will help with tolerating emotional distress.
Apologize when you need to. This takes humility and courage, and it will strengthen all of the relationships in your life. Let go of resentment. It can be difficult to move forward when anger is weighing on your shoulders. You do not have to carry this around anymore. You’re capable of letting go and forgiving.
Forgiving Others
Sometimes people wrong us in big ways that impact our lives. Sometimes we feel resentment toward someone for something small, but we just cannot seem to shake it. Regardless of the situation, there are things you can do to forgive.
Others don’t always live up to our expectations. They disappoint us, or they intentionally interfere with our lives. Once trust is broken, it’s easy to place high expectations on what that person must do in order to prove their worthiness for your forgiveness.
Believe it or not, you have control on when and who to forgive. You can decide to forgive someone right now, if you want, without them doing anything in return for you. The process of forgiveness can be long, especially if you’ve had resentments for a long time. However, by repeating a forgiveness exercise over and over, you’ll ease the weight that resentment puts on your shoulders.
In case you’ve just found this post on practicing gratitude and forgiveness and need a refresher on the 8 skills you need to live your life with inner strength and mental toughness, here they are:
- Develop your understanding of resilience and mental toughness
- Enhance your emotional regulation skills so you are in control
- Take full responsibility for your situation to grow exponentially
- Build a solid and supportive community of like-minded individuals
- Practice gratitude and forgiveness for yourself and others in your life
- Strengthen your relationship with yourself with a morning routine
- Move your body throughout each day to keep blood flowing to your brain
- Challenge yourself regularly with new skills and projects
I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and would love to connect with you. If you’re new to the world of online entrepreneurship and “inner game” thinking please check out my training on how to sell yourself at Sell Yourself and Your Stuff and learn how to gain an unfair advantage when it comes to building a lucrative online business. I’m here to serve you!