Gratitude and the Act of Thanksgiving

Do you ever wonder what your life will be like five years from now? If you can’t picture it, God certainly can. He has your life and plans for you laid out in His master plan, even when you can’t see it yourself.

We all go through difficult years in life, and we all experience amazing years that we don’t want to end. We have to practice gratitude and the act of thanksgiving on a daily basis. This will have a profound effect on your mental well-being.  Research states that gratitude has a positive effect on depression and an indirect positive effect on anxiety as well.

Here is an excerpt from an article titled, ‘The Grateful Brain: The Neuroscience of Giving Thanks,’ by Alex Korb, Ph.D.:

“They found that after controlling for the amount of sleep people got, gratitude still had an effect on lower depression scores. This means that regardless of their levels of insomnia, people who showed more gratitude were less depressed. With anxiety they found a different result. After controlling for sleep, gratitude showed no effect on anxiety.

So while higher gratitude led to less anxiety originally, this is simply because it helped people sleep better, and sleeping better improved their anxiety. So gratitude had a direct effect on depression symptoms (the more gratitude, the less depression) and an indirect effect on anxiety (increased gratitude led to improved sleep, which led to lower anxiety). Either way, with gratitude you’re better off, and you get a good night’s sleep.”

In this video you are about to watch, I describe why gratitude is important and how I practice this in my personal life as well. Our family went through a tough year in 2015, where I experienced a miscarriage and lost our second baby.

We have a healthy, happy, five-year-old daughter, who I am incredibly grateful for. The loss of our second baby in utero cemented the gratefulness and appreciation that I have for my one healthy, happy child. We have grown closer as a family as the result of this experience, and all of the pain that I experienced, I turned into purpose. I talk about this transformation for me in this video, which I hope will help you gain a positive outlook on your own life.

We all go through hard years that seem like they will never end. But at the end of that darkness, God will shine a light and bring beautiful things out of it, if you let Him. Counseling can help with this perspective in finding your purpose out of the pain you may have been through.

Building up resilience in the face of adversity is not an easy task, but with a close relationship to Jesus and the help of a trusted counselor, this is extremely possible for you.

God bless all of you and I pray you will practice gratitude daily, not just in the month of November when we are face to face with the thoughts of Thanksgiving.  If you are in need of counseling, please contact me at my information below.