Living Life in Gratitude

A New Contributor

“The Gratitude Goddess”  Shanna Maretsky

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,”thank you,” that would suffice.”

-Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

Is it possible that those two little words could be the key to abundance and even better, true happiness?

I’m no stranger to the law of attraction. For years, though, attracting joy and abundance seemed impossible.

Impossible, because I didn’t believe it.

Impossible, because I focused on the multitude of negative circumstances that had come my way and while at first I couldn’t actually see it, it became evident that the more I focused on the negative, the more it was that negativity seemed to surround me.

I was buried. Day after day I was caught up in a cycle of misery. I hated my job, my personal life was in shambles, and I was so far away from being my true, authentic self that I’d often cry myself to sleep wondering how I got myself into this place.

Who’s life was I living? How did I get here? But more importantly, HOW do I change it?

For me, changing my life meant creating a clean slate, and starting all over. I left the familiarity of my roots in California, and transplanted myself to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was drastic move: a complete gamble. I had the safety and security of my family to count on, but beyond that, I had no idea what I was going to do.

I made superficial changes, got a new hairstyle, went to parties, found a job to get me by, and all in all I was making it. I had started over, but didn’t have any true direction. Six months into this “recovery” process, I wasn’t really any better off. I realized that I had run away from some of the physical issues that were holding me back but continued to allow the negativity concerning what I was lacking to dictate the course of my reality.

“It’s the law of attraction,” my mom said. I had heard it so many times, I’m sure at one point I just stopped listening. But as it turns out, the simple principle of saying Thank You was the answer I had unknowingly been seeking all along.

She simply pointed out to me that what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.

Maybe that was it. Could it really be that simple?

Oprah Winfrey says it perfectly,  “I live in the space of thankfulness — and I have been rewarded a million times over for it. I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased.”

I began to wonder…How could I live in a space of thankfulness?

And suddenly, as easily as you can turn on a light switch, I changed my mindset.

Look at how much I had to be thankful for. I often said, out loud even, that on my very worst day in this new life of mine, it could never even compare to the unhappiness I was living in before. How could I not be thankful?

For the first time, I was in control. I could make the choice, because it is a choice, to BE positive and BE in gratitude and BE happy.

When you can learn to be grateful no matter what happens in your life, and say thank you for everything your entire world will change.

Say thank you to a friend for being there when you needed her.

Say thank you for the sunshine on a warm spring day.

Say thank you for the morning cup of coffee that motivates and comforts you.

Say thank you—even for the challenges, seeing them as opportunities for learning and growth.

Say thank you, because you can know with an unshakable faith that no matter what happens, you’ll get through it.

Say thank you for the trust to believe that it’s true.

Now, hear this though. Just because it’s SIMPLE, doesn’t mean it’s EASY. There are times when it’s hard to be grateful. It’s in those moments however, when you feel the LEAST thankful, that you can benefit the MOST from it.

This past November, I embarked on an experiment. Why wait till Thanksgiving to be thankful? I chose to recognize one thing, every day for the entire month that I was grateful for. I would then post these acknowledgements to the universe, and in this age of technology, my public statement came in the form of a Facebook status update.

What happened next astonished me. It became increasingly easy to find things to be thankful for. At one point I even said it was hard to limit myself to just one public outpour of gratitude per day. So I didn’t hold back. Friends and family soon commented, “What a great idea, I’m going to do this too!” I was quickly distributing a gift to everyone I knew-the gift of gratitude.

The more I acknowledged the goodness that surrounded me, the more I had to be grateful for, and as if it were magic, more good things began to happen and I was blissfully more aware of them then ever.

Needless to say, the gratitude didn’t stop at the end of the month, or even the end of the year. It multiplied and flourished and continues to surprise me every single day.

I’d like to share this simple gift with you, too.

The gift is this–

Focus on gratitude.

“Gratitude truly opens your eyes to the incredible abundance that is all around you. Make gratitude your constant companion and that abundance becomes yours to live.”- Ralph Marston

This will be a new Category “Tab” The Gratitude Goddess with continuing content from time to time.

Click here and Here To read previous Posts from or About Laura’s Daughters Shanna & Rachel (that cannot be moved)

Note: The Goddess Known As Jacqui Gates Thoroughly Loves Shanna’s Self Labeling..

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