“Gratitude turns what we have into enough”.

Article By: Angie Shaw - Founder of The Tree of Life Project

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough”.
This  quote is a favorite of mine.

I’ll admit it, there are days where I feel like I should have more or be further along than where I am now.
If and when I become unhappy with something, I’ll remember what I didn’t have before.
I’ll remember where I was before.
When I turn my thoughts into remembering what little I had before into what I have now,
I become grateful.

Being grateful for the happy things can cause me to be happier through all of the things.
Good and bad.

It’s not happiness that brings me gratitude but  it’s gratitude that brings me happiness.
On those tough, hard, days, where I can’t find joy and happiness, I try to find gratitude.
When I do this, I can shift my entire day into a happy one.
Gratitude is the secret to happiness and it begins with our thoughts.

When thinking about gratitude we often think of things that make us happy.

But, what about the things that caused us pain?

I am a person in long term recovery from addiction.
I’m grateful for every drug and drink I took that caused me so much emotional pain to the point that I became an empty shell of a person existing in this universe.

If I hadn’t experienced this, I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be whole again.
To feel alive.  To feel happiness, love, and joy.
That path led me to my spirituality, my tribe, and
my job I have today where I get to help others find their way back into the light.
I always try to find beauty in the wake of the pain.

I used to think gratitude came from material things.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for them.

However, gratitude comes from my thinking.
My feelings.
My experiences in life.

When I’m grateful for both the pain and love I have experience, I feel what real gratitude is all about. 

I’m very grateful, today, for not only my sobriety but for my emotional sobriety as well.
The freedom from my thoughts. To know that my thoughts are just that.
I don’t need to attach an emotion to them.
I can just observe my thoughts as if I’m watching a cloud pass by in the sky.
I’m grateful to have learned this. I’m grateful to practice being the observer. 

In summary, let’s make the choice, every single day we wake up,
to have an attitude of gratitude no matter what our current circumstances are.

Can you imagine what kind of world we would live in if we all did this? 

Article by
~Angie Shaw. Founder of The Tree of Life Project. ~