Gratitude- An Amazing Tool During Challenging Times

Gratitude plays an important role in our lives on a daily basis, and can especially come in handy during challenging times in our lives.

I know for a lot of people, when they start to go through challenging times, their daily practice of gratitude tends to go by the wayside. When actually, it’s during these challenging times that gratitude can play the most important role.

Challenges and difficult times in our lives are a gift

Challenges and difficult times in our lives are actually a gift, because they give us the opportunity to grow and to decide who we are going to be in the face of our challenges. When things are going smoothly and everything’s great in our lives, it’s easy to be grateful and there isn’t anything pushing us to grow as a human being and to evolve into someone stronger or more peaceful.

The emotions that surface when we face challenges in our lives are a clear indication of what’s inside us. I love the analogy about the orange:

If you squeeze an orange, the only thing that can come out is orange juice. That’s because that’s what’s inside the orange.

It’s the same with us… when you get ‘squeezed’, what comes out? Is it anger? Guilt? Fear? Challenging times give us the opportunity to really take a look at what our primary emotions are, because they are what will show up in the face of those challenges. If we are full of anger, we’ll see anger show up when the going gets tough. If we are filled with love, however, we will be able to face our challenges from a place of love, and gratitude.

So, the most important thing to remember is that your challenges are actually a gift, for they give you the opportunity to grow… an opportunity that we don’t have when things are peaches and cream.

Are you able to approach your challenges from a place of gratitude?

If you aren’t able to come from a place of gratitude during these challenging times, you can take notice of that and know that this is an area that you can work on in your life so that you can fill yourself up with more love, and less anger or whatever other emotions might be running the show.

I’ve created a short video on the topic of gratitude:

Enjoy, and be grateful. There’s always something (so many things!) that we can be grateful for!

Please feel free to share this article/video on Twitter and Facebook (share the love!) and please leave your comments below… I’d love to hear about what you’re grateful for today!

With extreme gratitude,