FINDING GRATITUDE IN HIDDEN  AND EVEN PAINFUL PLACES

These are some of the simple exercises used in the gratitude research that caused such astounding results

Neuroscience has also shown what the Ancestors affirm; "What you resist will persist, what you defeat, defeats you, what you destroy, destroys you." It is better to go into the pain and experience it than try and shut it out. Practice (as in meditation) makes perfect, and Vipasana meditators have been shown to be more skillful in handling pain when subjected to painful stimuli than non meditators.

 There are many who would agree about going into the pain in order to let it go more quickly. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with this, if required, either for oneself or for another.

At the end of the day it is often the most painful situations that wake us up from our complacency such as; loss of a loved one, job or health and that put us on a spiritual path. Even if we cannot be happy about the event we can still be grateful for the growth outcome. In studies on patients who have had catastrophic illnesses one often hears that they would not have chosen to be sick but later became grateful for the inner gifts the crisis brought to them. This was true even in those who eventually succumbed to the illness.