Aren’t we a little sick of everyone telling us we should be grateful?  It is annoying. We are told we should have a journal and document everything we are grateful for. A list of all the people and blessed events in our lives. We should begin each day proclaiming how grateful we are for all that we have.

Sometimes life just stinks.   We all go through rough patches and hard times.  Maybe we don’t feel so grateful? Maybe our job is challenging  and awful? Or we have just been diagnosed with a bad disease? Maybe we just lost our job? Or love?  Maybe the only thing we ever wanted was to have children of our own, and then we could not?  Perhaps the only person we truly loved – died?  And the list goes on and of all that is challenging, painful and hurtful in our lives.

The world we live in can be difficult; the trials and challenges of everyday life can be overwhelming.  Watching the news alone can send a person in to a tail spin — the mass shootings, poverty, inequality and natural disasters can make us feel totally unsteady, angry and maybe even hopeless.

But here’s the thing – even though you may have every right to feel anger, despair, hatred, and a sense that things are not fair – it just does not help you at all to feel that way.  Negative thinking feeds on itself and we can easily start seeing the world as a very dark and hopeless place.  Shifting the lens with which you see the whole world can really change your entire perspective. As Winston Churchill said “If you are going through hell, keep going”.  I take this to mean that you don’t want to stay in hell, (and in my opinion, even purgatory), you will emerge on the other side to someplace better and happier, or at least wiser and stronger.

So—- if you want better — if you want more joy and happiness, more love and belonging, more health and abundance than you currently have –you have to change your attitude.  You have to start to see things in a different light, and start to eradicate the darkness and fear surrounding your thoughts.  You may see that your current situation is not terrible. Maybe some things are even good.  And maybe you will begin to see possibility.  Possibility of a better, happier and more joyful life.

Elizabeth Lesser writes in her powerful book Broken Open “Everything can change in a moment; we have little control over the outer weather patterns as we make our way through the landscape of a life. But we can become masters of the inner landscape. We can use what happens on the outside to change the way we function on the inside. This is the moral of the great teaching myths. The hero conquers a monster; the heroine completes a quest; the reward at the end was there all along—the true self, the awakened consciousness. Joseph Campbell said, “What all myths have to deal with is transformations of consciousness. You have been thinking one way, you now have to think a different way. Consciousness is transformed either by the trials themselves or by illuminating revelations. Trials and revelations are what it’s all about.”

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/excerpt-from-broken-open-by-elizabeth-lesser/all#ixzz58zoHPG7B

Being grateful will not solve all your problems – or maybe any of them.  But for a minute or two it will put a smile on your face. Some days it may be very hard to find something to be grateful about.  The benefit of being grateful is that your thoughts are important and your thoughts can determine your reality.  We may think of this as hokey and unscientific but even Einstein thinks our “energy” and thoughts can determine our reality.

And in those moments that you are feeling grateful,   your blood pressure will decrease, your heart rate will lower, your immune system will be boosted. For a brief moment you will have peace.