Standing on the shoulders of giants

Oct. 24, 2011 - PRLog -- Our subject – Gratitude

Researchers have found that the virtues of gratitude include good health…

If you can achieve good health by a repetition of simple actions, wouldn’t life be so much easier? In this week’s newsletter let’s see if we can prove that theory!

If people admired you, wouldn’t that fill your soul with joy? Gratitude attracts this admiration

QUOTE: “Through my years of teaching, I have met people whose lives work and those whose lives don't.  The one’s whose lives don't work, all seem to have something in common - a lack of gratitude for what they have already!  It is impossible for us to gain more in life if we are ambivalent with what we already do have.”

QUOTE: “Even if a person is living on the street, there is still always something to be grateful for.  And, they had better find it because appreciation is the power that will expand them right off of the street!”

QUOTE: “Gratitude can create a major turning point in your life!  It is one of the fastest, simplest, and most powerful ways to expand energy IMMEDIATELY!”

(All quotes by Carole Doré)

Everyone we meet, whether the result of this meeting is good or bad is a messenger. Why? They are sent to enlighten us.

Let me give you an example. This last weekend I have had some 48 hour bug, which has left me a little short tempered. My two children have been testing me a treat, pushing me until I raised my voice in correcting their misbehaviour. To their surprise it was sooner than normal. Short tempered as I was through a short bout of illness they had chosen the wrong time to test my compassion, love and I guess stupidity.

“Go sit DOWN in the lounge,” I demanded. “A lesson in courtesy, politeness and gratitude is about to happen,” I rumbled in my deep voice. I looked at my two children, albeit with a headache, stomach ache and back
ache and noticed one was hiding behind a cushion and the other behind her hands awaiting their destiny.

I was meeting a new set of circumstances… so what message had my children for me? The message was clear. Had I not allowed a handful of incidences to be accumulated so I erupted with fury, I should have tackled the first and second in sequence as they happened.

The emotion of pain had made my tools of comprehension falter. Had I been perfectly healthy I would have corrected my children each time a problem arose. I must therefore acknowledge that some form of gratitude must be shown for my 48 hour illness, to confirm the need to resolve each unsavoury circumstance as soon as it arises, if at all possible.

Any emotional interference will not help your power to decide. You must be able to see this play in action. Any high emotion, including pain, will diminish your senses from supplying the information you require, plus it
appears to block your intuition from operating successfully.

Gratitude allows you to draw strength and wisdom from everyday life. When you encounter a darker moment, gratitude would show you the shining light, it would illuminate the way out of your problem.

Gratitude can do this! And thus in doing so prevents the pain, anguish and stress involved in the depths of despair.

If you are grateful for what you have you will not suffer the mood swings that occur in moments of jealousy or in times of anger. The next time you feel grumpy could be the perfect moment to show gratitude for that
discomfort; because it is a sign. A sign that implies that not too many minutes earlier there is a confirmation that you had made the wrong decision. Accept it was wrong and try and correct it.

In recent years, many scientists have begun examining the links between wisdom and good health, both physical and mental. Two psychologists have worked to unlock the puzzle of how faith, religion and spiritualism might promote happiness. Dr. Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, say their initial scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person's sense of well-being.

So onto this week's story…

THE SLAVE AND THE LION

A slave ran away from his master, by whom he had been most cruelly treated, and, in order to avoid capture, betook himself into the desert. As he wandered about in search of food and shelter, he came to a cave, which he entered and found to by unoccupied. Really, however, it was a lion's den, and almost immediately, to the horror of the wretched fugitive, the lion himself appeared. The man gave himself up for lost. But, to his utter astonishment, the lion, instead of springing upon him, came and fawned upon him, at the same time whining and lifting up his paw. Observing it to be much swollen and inflamed, he examined it and found a large thorn embedded in the ball of the foot. He accordingly removed it and dressed the wound as well as he could. And in course of time it healed up completely.

The lion's gratitude was unbounded. He looked upon the man as his friend, and they shared the cave for some time together. A day came, however, when the slave began to long for the society of his follow men, and he bade farewell to the lion and returned to the town. Here he was presently recognized and carried off in chains to hi former master, who resolved to make an example of him, and ordered that he should be thrown to the beasts at the next public spectacle in the theatre.  

On the fatal day the beasts were loosed into the arena, and among the rest a lion of huge bulk and ferocious aspect. And then the wretched slave was cast in among them. What was the amazement of the spectators, when the lion after one glance bounded up to him and lay down at his feet with every expression of affection and delight! It was his old friend of the cave! The audience clamoured that the slave's life should be spared. And the governor of the town, marvelling at such gratitude and fidelity in a beast, decreed that both should receive their liberty.

(Æsop's Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones -London: W. Heinemann, 1912)
by: Wisdom-and-Philosophy.com

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Andria Bolton
Editor, Author and Businesswomen
Wisdom-and-Philosophy.com and How-to-be-Happy.co.uk
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