§ We came to this world to LIVE OUT LOUD.

As American Thanksgiving approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude.
I’m so grateful for so much abundance in my life – my amazing family, loving marriage of way-too-many years, good health, supporting and inspiring friends and all the joy and adventure in my life!

I’m also SO, SO, SO GRATEFUL for you! For the opportunity you give me to use my gifts, talents and life experience to be of service and make a difference in the world!

To show my gratitude and to connect with you more, I have recorded a short video. Check it out!

And I would love to hear from you: what are you grateful for?

I also want to share with you a post I wrote several months ago about how the simple practice of gratitude helped bring me out of depression. It’s an oldie but goodie:

Let me tell you how a simple practice helped bring me out of a serious funk.

In my late-twenties, I was healing from a lot of childhood trauma and I was depressed.

I mean, clinically depressed. I opened up Pandora’s Box of memories and I was in serious pain.

I quit my job. I had no energy to do anything. I felt like crap.

On many a winter afternoon, all I could do was take long hot aromatherapy baths and then curl up in fetal position, watching a candle burn.. for hours.

I was in a bad place.

And then, my therapist suggested that I start a gratitude practice. All I had to do was get a pretty journal and a fun pen and write down 3 things that I was grateful for every single day.

I have to confess that this seemed like a huge task at the time. I wasn’t feeling particularly grateful. But I’m really disciplined and I really trusted my therapist and I began what I now see as my recovery.

I started with 3 things to be grateful for but pretty soon, I found myself going for walks, challenging myself to think of as many things as I could to be grateful for… 10, 20, 50… I made it to 100 one day! I started to feel better. I noticed that every time I focused on what I was grateful for, I felt a hopeful.

Gratitude became a state of mind.

Now I’m not going to tell you that gratitude alone cured me of clinical depression or healed my trauma. It took lots of therapy, EMDR, and healing work of every kind. Not to mention a couple of years on anti-depressants.

But I can tell you that focusing on what I had to be grateful for helped a lot.

And it set the stage for a lifelong practice.

To this day, the last thing I think about before I go to bed are 10 things that I’m grateful for that day (and 3 things that I acknowledge myself for). And if I ever find myself in a funk, I pull out my pretty journal and fun pen and make a list of all that I am grateful for in my life.

So what about you? Do you have a REGULAR AND COMMITTED gratitude practice?

If not, here’s a great reason to start:

We’re energetic beings in an energetic universe and we attract people and things and circumstances to us all the time. And who and what we attract is greatly determined by our own energetic vibration.

When we feel good, we’re vibrating at a higher frequency… and attracting other high vibration people and circumstances.

When we feel crappy, we’re vibrating at a lower frequency and guess what we are attracting? Yep, other low frequency people and circumstances.

Who wants that?

There are various ways to increase your vibrational frequency, feel better and attract higher vibration people and events into your life, but one of the quickest and best is to focus on GRATITUDE.

Being grateful tends to bring even more of what you’re grateful for to you.

Plus, by having a regular gratitude practice, you literally train your brain to look for reasons to be grateful, to look for the positive.

Living in a state of gratitude really improves your mood and your outlook on life and IT FEELS GOOD.

Even if everything is not exactly as you want it to be, even if everything sucks… there has to be something good happening in your life… Hey, you woke up this morning and you’re breathing. That’s already a start. And I bet there’s a whole lot more to appreciate and be thankful for.

So here’s what you do:

1. Get a journal that inspires you and a fun pen and write down what you are grateful for.

        – See if you can make it to 10? 20? 50? 100?

2. Now make it a daily practice to write down at least 5 things you are grateful for every night before you go to bed.

Do this simple practice and watch your life and your mood improve rapidly. (It’s great for a good night’s sleep too!)

And make sure to leave me a note below to let me know how a gratitude practice has made a difference in your life. Let’s start a conversation!

xoxo,
Natalie

P.S. I have a few spots opening up in January for 1:1 coaching to help you figure out how to turn your passions, gifts and strengths into a successful business or passion project. All while creating an extraordinary life. If you want to apply for one of these spots, fill out an application for a complimentary consultation to see if we are a good fit to work together.

P.S.S. If we’re not connected on Facebook yet, come visit. You can also find me on  Instagram too!