How to Use Your Problems to Feel Grateful

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Gratitude is powerful because it is virtually impossible to be in a bad emotional place and feel grateful. When we’re grateful we don’t feel angry or fearful or anxious or depressed.

However, it is sometimes hard to summon up the past experiences we are grateful for, or we struggle to remember that we’ve been through worse. In these cases, we can use the present to get into a state of gratitude.

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1. Comparison: This can get SO much worse

Acknowledging that things can get much worse, that there are many people much worse off will blow away the clouds of our shortsightedness of the negative to let the sun of gratitude shine on all the other things we do enjoy in our lives.

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2. Perspective: This will make me grateful in the future

Another way to use the present to feel grateful when we are going through a tough time is to bring to mind that my difficult present will become a memory I will be able to use to feel grateful for in the future. Strangely enough, this allows us to feel grateful today because it will be a source of gratefulness in the future.

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Love the good and the bad of the past

Love the good and the bad of the present

For it is this love what makes for a better future

Compassion Critical Thinking Emotional Fitness Gratitude