Happy, Honored, and Grateful to Serve!

For my second post I decided to write of my "happy, grateful, and honored" experiment.  I felt that these qualities could help me stay in a happier and healthier mindframe and thus allow me to develop a deeper inner motivation to serve and to be of greater service.  

There are many benefits of gratitude.   In his article, "Gratitude Makes Your Brain Better," Dr. Daniel Amen, MD shares how a colleague's brain scan (you can also view the brain scan photos in the linked article) when she was focused on gratitude appeared more healthy and balanced than when she thought about all the things that could go wrong in her life.  Dr. Amen states how, "negative thought patterns change the brain in a negative way. Being grateful for the wonderful things in your life literally helps you have a brain to be grateful for." 

Gratitude is also known to be linked to happiness.  Dr. William F. Doverspike, Ph.D. in his article, "Gratitude:  A Key to Happiness," shares psychological research suggesting that happiness is related to being grateful for what we already have rather than being a state of achieving a goal or acquiring a possession.  

In a book by the same name, Gratitude:  A Key to Happiness, Master Marilyn Smith shares profound wisdom, teachings, and practices she has received from the Divine to transform one's life to greater happiness, service and more.  

Being aware of such wonderful benefits of gratitude, I  did an exercise for one week of attempting to preface my thoughts with, "I'm so grateful..."  I would do a running commentary in my head of what I was doing and think,  I'm so grateful ...that I having running warm water to take a shower,  "I'm so grateful ... to have this meal,"  "I'm so grateful... to see this rainbow," and so on.  I have to admit, my week seemed to go quite nicely and smoothly.  I realized how much I took for granted the many blessings in my life.

The next week, I decided to do the same exercise but add the word "happy."  So I was now "happy and grateful for..."  I found this added a feeling of lightness and joy in my life!  This was especially helpful when I caught myself initially not wanting or motivated to do a task such as cleaning up, doing an errand, etc. Feeling "happy and grateful" to do the task made it much easier to do and I found myself thinking of creative ways to make my task more enjoyable, such as singing and dancing while doing the task.

The following week, I added the word "honored."  My experience and feeling of gratitude deepened and I felt a greater sense of reverence and humility!  I also found myself happily singing, "happy, honored, and grateful" to the tune of Dr. & Master Sha's Divine Soul Song, "Happy, Happy, Happy" (see end of this soul tapping video posted below, time 8:07 to hear tune.  I also recommend you view the complete video for a great teaching and practice by Master Sha, who is the Greatest Servant EVER! ).  

In the middle of writing this blog, I went back to look at Master Marilyn's Book, Gratitude:  A Key to Happiness (which I highly recommend you read) and read the one-sentence secret about gratitude which is:

Gratitude is unconditional appreciation, reverence, respect, and joy (p. 9).  

Wow!  This one sentence secret summed up my "happy, honored and grateful" experiences and more!  I felt greater appreciation for my life, greater reverence and a deeper respect for people, things, and situations around me, and much more joyful in whatever I did.   

Try this "happy, honored, and grateful" experiment and let me know of your experiences! (I also will do this again as I can feel the difference after not being as mindful to being "happy, honored, and grateful," these past few weeks). 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post!  I am most "happy, honored, and grateful" to be able to write and hopefully serve in this way!

Much love and gratitude, Laurie