Counting your blessings

The year has been a roller coaster for all of us. With the COVID- 19 pandemic starting as early as March, we’d barely started this decade in good spirits. With both the national and international cases of the pandemic rising and so many impacts, it is hard to say if anyone has not been impacted. As this year is coming to a close, we are very hopeful for a vaccine, but we need to know that it is not going to be over soon. Once in a lifetime pandemic events take time and a toll on everybody. So please continue to be patient, compassionate and kind.

In this post I want to emphasize why we should always look at the bright side and count our blessings. There may be lot of gloom and sadness around us but to be high spirited and hopeful for future, we should always look at positive things. I know it is easier said than done, but it will make our lives so much better. By counting our blessings, we develop a mind set of gratitude, which in turn helps us.

In my earlier post about benefits of having a positive attitude, I wrote about how positivity changes our outlook in life and keeps us going. We all need it all the more this year! Having a positive attitude may make you happy, kind, compassionate and grateful.

Counting your blessings

What does it mean to be thankful? What does counting your blessings mean? Counting your blessings means looking at good things in your life. It means not to take for granted what is right and good in our lives. All of us have lots of positive things that we should not forget to look at on a daily basis. There are many examples of things that we may take for granted. Examples include having a family which is healthy and loves you, friends and neighbors who care for you, a job or career that you cherish, a vacation which made all the difference, a home or vehicle that turned from a dream into a reality, and so on. The list is endless. So are your blessings!

We can count our blessing by being thankful, living in the present, through daily affirmations and understanding the power of our thought.

Be thankful

When we start counting our blessings, we come into this state of always being thankful. Thankful for all what we have in our lives, and not asking for more and more. We become content and feel happy at the very moment instead of waiting for the right moment to arrive. This is true. Our blessings are enormous. We can count our blessings, and develop this attitude of gratitude and always be thankful. The foremost and most important is your own physical and mental state. Our first blessing is our own body which is healthy and houses positive thoughts. This in turn can give us opportunities to help others around us. It is rightly been said that only when you lose something, you understand the value of it in the first place. So let us all make sure it doesn’t happen with us. Let us make sure we appreciate all little things in our lives in the present. Let us not wait for that perfect moment to be happy. Let us all celebrate the present, the now; because there is no greater gift than the present.

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough

Opran Winfrey

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance

Eckhart Tolle

This a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.

Maya Angelou

Live in the present

We are all humans, and it is human tendency to look at deficiency or what we lack. We always run behind things we don’t have, and may forget to enjoy what is right next to us. Let us pause, let us reflect, let us take a moment to enjoy the present before it suddenly may turn into past. Live in the present, and enjoy the little joys and wins in the moment.

Be present in all things and thankful for all things

Maya Angelou

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Buddha

Living in the moment brings you a sense of reverence for all of life’s blessings

Oprah Winfrey

Daily affirmations

It is very important to have daily affirmations as reminders to ourselves that we have enough. Motivating yourself on a regular basis helps your physical body as well as mental self, as your thought process plays a huge role in convincing you that you have everything you need right now. Enjoy beauty around you by opening your mind and filling it with positivity and encouragement.

You can make your own daily affirmations or chose from the many. Some of the affirmations close to my heart include the following:

1. I am enough
2. I am grateful every day for all the blessings in my life
3. I always see the best in others
4. I believe in myself
5. I choose hope over fear

Power of your thoughts

There has been numerous research pointing to the fact that our thoughts shape us. It is not what we have but what we think we have, that makes all the difference. So it is very important to always feed positive thoughts to our mind. We can believe what we want, and we can achieve what we want if we put our mind to it.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

Muhammad Ali

Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself

Swami Vivekananda

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude

Thomas jefferson

In Conclusion

Counting our blessings makes us look at all of the positivity and abundance in our life, and helps us develop an attitude of gratitude. We do not take things for granted, or wait till something is lost before we start appreciating the goodness. Life is a journey to be explored, not a destination to reach. Live in the present, and enjoy each moment as if it would be your last. There is no greater joy than to be happy and content in the present. It can change your thoughts and shape your future.

Dear readers, we would love to hear about how you keep yourself motivated and different ways that help you count your blessings. Please comment below or send an email to nishtha@dawnandhope.com