How positive or negative is your thinking? Try this exercise:
1. Take a few moments to sit and look around you.
2. Find something negative in everything you see.
3. Make a list of all the critical and unhappy thoughts that come into your mind.
4. Notice how you feel when you are finished, and write those feelings down.
Not much fun? A steady diet of critical, negative, and ungrateful thoughts leaves us critical, negative, and ungrateful. Now try the opposite approach.
1. Take a few moments and look around you.
2. Find something positive in everything you see.
3. Make a list of all the kind, generous, and grateful thoughts that come into your mind.
4. Notice the difference.
What if this exercise became a way of life? It can. Nobody other than you has the power to make you miserable and unhappy. As you pass through your day, look for opportunities to see the good in the world, in nature, and in life. This simple exercise will place your mind in a healthy posture of gratitude.
VERSE FOR REFLECTION
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thess. 5:16–18)
PRAY IT THROUGH
Lord,
I desire to be characterized by gratitude. I admit that I am more prone to dwell on the negative than the positive and to pine after the what-ifs rather than bask in the “alreadys.” Give me the grace to truly rejoice in the many good gifts you have given.
In your holy name, amen.