Note: This article is based on the blogger Marc Chernoff, and includes his tips for being grateful and strong on difficult days.
Most of the time, we turn simple incidents in our lives into tragedies. For example, something may not go exactly as planned, but instead of learning from the experience and moving on, we panic about it and let stress take over, or we refuse to appreciate the small steps of our progress because we cannot achieve exactly what we want right away. And the solution to that is in your hands.
Tips for being grateful and strong on tough days
1. Be Grateful for the Presence of Difficult People
We expect people to treat us with kindness, fairness, and respect, but the truth is that some people will not, as sometimes they will lose their temper or act foolishly, no matter how we treat them, and we must accept this.
Don't lower your standards, but remind yourself that getting rid of your expectations of others, especially those who are difficult, is the best way to avoid feeling disappointed in them.
When you have to deal with a difficult person, you can be grateful that there are other people in your life who are not, and you can be grateful that you have a way to practice patience, to communicate, and to let go of your expectations. At least you can be grateful to them because, with their behavior, you know how bad it is and you will never do the same.
2. Be Grateful When You Notice That You Are Starting to Complain
Most people complain when things don't go well, and gratitude is the cure. Every time you notice that you're complaining, notice your thoughts about your perceptions of life. And instead of letting these thoughts control you, find a simple way to be grateful. Think about what you can be grateful for and what you can appreciate at this moment. Remember that in life there are reasons to complain and there are reasons to be grateful, and you are the one who decides which one to take sides with.
3. Be Grateful When You Start to Feel Overwhelmed
You may have noticed how, as you get used to an amazing situation or relationship in your life, you start to take it lightly. You may even feel irritated or overwhelmed when you're under stress, so challenge yourself to change your perspective in these moments with a simple paraphrasing tool. Add "and I love it" to any thought that makes you feel overwhelmed:
- I need to buy groceries, pay bills, and pick up the kids from school within an hour, and I love it.
- My inbox is full of dozens of emails from a customer that I have to reply to today, and I love it.
Change your point of view by performing this little paraphrasing tool, because the everyday things that tire us are often blessings we don't know.
4. Be Grateful After Losing a Job
No one wins at chess by just moving forward; sometimes you have to move backwards to put yourself on the winning board, and this analogy applies to your career as well.
As painful as losing your job is, it is an end that allows you to make a fresh start and replace the weight of success with the lightness of starting over, writing a different story and an opportunity to renew your life and rebuild yourself.
So remind yourself as often as necessary to feel grateful for being where you are now, for these moments of renewal, and for the discomfort of having to go to interviews, learn new skills, and level up. You can feel grateful when you have the opportunity to grow and become stronger despite the pain that ultimately leads you to success.
5. Be Grateful in the Midst of Health Issues
A close friend of ours told us on the last day of her life that her only regret was that she had not lived her whole life with the same passion that she had had for the last two years after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. She said, "I've accomplished a lot lately, and I really appreciate every step. If I had known earlier, I would have started earlier."
Her words made us cry and smile at the same time and what was truly miraculous was seeing the true gratitude in her eyes at that moment. Her feelings have always accompanied us since then, so while health issues are never fun, you can overcome the pain by being grateful for the chance to move on. Life is worth living and enjoying every precious moment.
6. Be Grateful When Someone You Love Dies
It breaks your heart when you lose someone you can't imagine living without and unfortunately, you will never get over that loss and you will never forget it, yet you can move on with the experience and even find meaning in it.
In the end, we must appreciate that while death is an end, it is also a necessary part of life. As endings highlight beauty in what precedes them, death is the last of endings and a reminder that we must celebrate the beautiful person who lived their life and appreciate life.
Despite our deep sadness, this event compels us to gradually reorganize our lives without the one we have lost, and this renewal is an opportunity to see beauty in new ways and places we have not noticed. Finally, death is an opportunity to celebrate a person's life and to express gratitude for the beauty they shared with us.
It is not easy to find gratitude in the midst of life's frustrations and struggles, but they can become ways to grow if we understand the lessons they hold and start making everything seem like a learning opportunity. The best time to focus on gratitude is when you don't feel like it, because it can make all the difference.
Our Loss Story and What Saved Us
To emphasize the above six points, let me briefly talk to you about how my wife and I learned them.
A decade ago, we faced, in a relatively short time frame, many large and unexpected losses and successive changes, from losing a brother due to his suicide to the loss of our best friend due to a heart attack, financial uncertainty after losing a job, breaking up with a loved one for cheating on us over and over, and family business failure.
These experiences were harsh and affected us. By facing them in quick succession, we got lost for a while. For example, when my wife’s brother died, facing this reality while supporting her grieving family was sometimes incredibly painful. There are moments when we cut ourselves off from the world and avoid our loved ones who were sad by our side. We didn't want to deal with the pain, so we resorted to running away and finding unhealthy ways to relieve ourselves and as a result, we got sick physically and the mental pain kept getting worse inside us.
We had been panicking for too long and getting to the right state of mind that allowed us to move forward physically and emotionally again required serious practice. We had to learn how to free our minds so that we could think clearly and be open to the current opportunities before us.
We've learned that opening up about painful feelings and emotions isn't easy but it will allow you to move on because it means you're acknowledging that you don't really know what the next step will be and that you want to understand what is going on. It requires that you be fully present and genuinely grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow.
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