ManifestingWellBeing.com

Here in America we are celebrating Thanksgiving. Or iginally, back in 1789, President George Washington proclaimed this to be a public day of thanksgiving and prayer. Today, many people think of the holiday as a day to gather with friends and family, eat turkey, and give thanks for the blessings in their lives.

Giving thanks may seem like a “good” and “nice” thing to do. However, the benefits of giving thanks and expressing gratitude have profound ripple effects. Marci Shimoff, author of Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out www.happyfornoreason.com, interviewed 100 unconditionally happy people as a part of her research for this book. She found that unconditionally happy people have happiness habits that they practice. One of these happiness habits is to Focus on Gratitude. Marci explains that if you want to learn a new skill or habit, a great way to do this is to model someone who already practices this skill or habit. So, if happiness is something that you would like to attract more of into your life, cultivating gratitude is a good step toward doing this.

A fun exercise which utilizes giving thanks and may increase your happiness is the exercise of giving thanks in advance. To do this exercise, simply think about what you would like to attract into your life. Imagine and feel for a few moments what it would feel like if these events/circumstances were already in your life. After contemplating this for a few minutes, start to give thanks for these events/circumstances as if had manifested. Some example statements might be, “Thank you for my healthy body. . . I am so grateful for the fun job and clients that I have. . . I am so thankful for the safe and comfortable home that I live in.” It is a fun exercise and really can get the “gratitude juices” flowing through your body.

I am a big fan of expressing gratitude and I make it one of my daily practices. This year I am more appreciative of the Thanksgiving holiday than I have ever been before. For the coming year I’m going to focus on having the feeling of Thanksgiving present in my life all year long. . . . but I think I’ll skip eating turkey everyday.

Deborah Barnett, Ph.D.

www.ManifestingWellBeing.com

Manifesting Well-Being for Health and Success

Ed Diener, Ph.D. is one of the most well respected researchers in the field of positive psychology. As a member of the International Positive Psychology Association, this summer I had the good fortune of hearing Dr. Diener speak during a teleclass about his new book,  Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth  which he co-wrote with his son, Robert Biswas-Diener. During his call Dr. Diener’s shared information from his new book. This included an overview of the benefits of being happy. Some of these include:

Social Benefits – happy people are likely to be more social, self-confident and warm

Work Success – happy people tend to be rated more highly by their supervisors, perform better on the job and make more money.

Health and Longevity- happy people have a stronger immune system and in a study of nuns, the happier nuns lived longer than the less happy nuns

Societal Benefits -happy people tend to volunteer more, be more peaceful and more cooperative.

For a delightful interview of Ed Diener and his son Robert Biswas-Diener by writer Gretchen Rubin, see Gretchen’s blog post of her Happiness interview with Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener

Gretchen is writing a book called The Happiness Project which will be published in late 2009.