Gratitude changes your brain and the way you think. The more grateful you are, the more positive words find their way into your thoughts, writing, and overall communication. The more positive your communication, the more positive people’s responses are to anything you communicate.
Gratitude is like a run-away train that starts with a single emotion, simply being grateful. When your focus is on being grateful, it eliminates negative thoughts or, at the very least, reduces them and shifts your thinking from toxic or harmful feelings to positive feelings that improve mental health. Focusing on gratitude makes it much harder to dwell on negative experiences, memories, or emotions.
How Does Gratitude Benefit You?
When you are grateful, you are generally not focused on “me” but rather on “we,” which includes all the reasons and the people traveling in the same positive direction. If you focus on “we” rather than “me,” it becomes challenging, if not impossible, to approach life from a selfish or self-centered place. Even if your positive thoughts are only inside your head and not shared with anyone, they still benefit your overall mental health.
Gratitude shifts your mindset in several ways, all of which benefit you:
- What you are thankful for becomes primary in your mind and continues to have more value
- Being thankful slowly and permanently shifts your thinking to the positive rather than the negative
- If you are thankful, you appreciate your abundance no matter how small, which clears the way for more happiness and abundance
- Once you see things to be grateful for, you start to notice even more things that you previously overlooked
- Your gratitude attracts like-minded people, and as you spend time together, your mutual gratitude and appreciation grow
How Does Gratitude Benefit Recovery?
Gratitude can help your recovery in several ways:
- When you are grateful for today, it keeps your focus on the present
- When you are grateful, you reframe your priority of what is important at that moment
- When you focus on today’s gratitude, you focus on progress and achievements, not negative thoughts
- When you banish negative thinking, you build confidence from your accomplishments, no matter how small
- Gratitude eliminates negative feelings like anger and guilt and replaces them with self-confidence and self-worth
- Gratitude fosters feelings of positivity and excitement about tomorrow and creates actions towards the life you are striving to achieve
Practicing gratitude may help train the brain to be more sensitive to the experience of gratitude in the future, which can improve mental health. Learning to live in the moment and experience appreciation for what is around you will positively change your mental health.
Switching from “me” to “we” thinking changes everything; it is nearly impossible to dwell on old negative thought patterns because if you are thinking about “we,” you are not focused on yourself but rather on the people surrounding you.
Adding one act to your day – the practice of being grateful – will change your life. Gratitude can help shift you into positive thinking, helping improve your overall mental health. If you are struggling with mental health and practicing gratitude, The Guest House is here to help. Our facility provides premier-quality treatment to those who struggle with self-defeating behaviors brought on by trauma and mental health issues. The Guest House understands how positive thinking can aid and negative thinking can undermine recovery. Call us today at (855) 483-7800 to learn more about how we can help you.