Thankfulness as Your Relationship Strategy

On yesterday's radio show in the new time slot, I talked about using thankfulness in your relationship strategy. (I'm talking about this relationship strategy all month long, so catch the archives or be sure to catch the next two weeks of shows.)

 

Thankfulness and gratitude are so much more than just being polite. I tend to think that the reason why most of us don't really understand thankfulness on a deeper level is because we're not really trained to be thankful.
We're not really trained to look at what we have now as already abundant.
We're not really trained that the desire for something in our lives is not the same as an expression of what is lacking in our lives.

 

What we are expertly trained on - for many of us, from the time we're children - is to look at what should have been better, what we did or are doing wrong, and easily name off everything that we should have but don't have today.

 

"The world today takes a lot of stock in what is wrong. The world today takes a lot of stock in what's missing." It's not that we can't see what we have now as anything special. We're just not used to it. So at first, the re-training to see something different takes work. It is much easier to complain about what we don't have, because that is more actionable. We should be able to do something about the things that are wrong. We can't do anything about the things that are already right.

 

But focusing on the things that are right and good in our lives - that is, being thankful - is the action we can take when we are challenged with things gone wrong. Did you ever notice how the person who is constantly mentioning their certain disaster, certainly suffers it? We get more of whatever it is we think of, and we get more of whatever we are emotionally attached to, whether it currently exists or not.

So, here's the real trick to this strategy:

Identify and express gratititude for whatever bits you have today of what you want tomorrow.

For example:

• If you want more money in your life, look in your wallet now and say, "Thank you for that $4.37! It's there for something good today!"
• Or if you want more connection in your life, get the phone numbers or email addresses of your current connections and let them know you were thinking of them and that you thank them for all they've done for you.
• If you're looking for your body to be more hot, identify one or more of your body parts - even if it's a 1-inch-square patch of skin - and look at it kindly, directly or in a mirror, and say aloud to yourself, "That is one hot [put body part name here]."

I call this Discovery Activity, the Thank You Bits. And the more ridiculous I thought an exercise was, the more effective it ended up being!

 

An alternate Discovery Activity - and the one I recommended on the air - is the very simple Gratitude List. I used to do this myself every night, as a result of this show, I'm going to start doing it again. Before going to bed each night, list on paper or in your head, at least TEN THINGS you're thankful for from the day.

Examples:

• What you have (such as: friends, your housing, all your teeth)
• What you're glad happened (such as: got paid, got groceries, prescriptions got filled)
• What you did (such as: said hi to the post office lady, laughed at the exercise Janice suggested earlier, cooked a tasty dinner)

I have personally tested every Discovery Activity I have provided for you. Try either of these out for at least once a day for the next week - until next week's radio show - and see what happens. Never thought that thankfulness had a goofy side, did you?

I love to hear from you! Tell me what you think of these Discovery Activities for Thankfulness and what kinds of results you're getting when you try them!

To listen to my webcast on this subject, click here.
For a listing of my upcoming shows about Thanksgiving (and for more archived shows), check out my radio show page.