Showing posts with label Virtue development - gratitude and joy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virtue development - gratitude and joy. Show all posts

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Virtue development - Part Two, Gratitude and Joy


Part two
Gratitude and joy come from reflection

The virtue of gratitude and the resulting joy takes practice. Every day we should end the day before sleep thinking of three good things which happened to us during that day that we are thankful for. It is the practice of “smelling the roses” and taking time and effort to reflect on that which gives our life joy, comfort, and peace.

Did meeting a person and having a moment of connection provide a blessed moment today? Did some act of kindness given or received make your day? Did you experience a moment of beauty, goodness, truth that strike you as having been a thing of grace and blessing?

We are so focused on the negative because our primal brain, based in our amygdala, is so attuned to threat that we biologically respond with the fight- flight- freeze response until the prefrontal cortex kicks in and we are able to get things in perspective and figure out how to purposely and deliberately respond.

Gratitude comes from the prefrontal cortex, the thinking mind, where executive functioning takes place, not from the amygdala where the instinctual fight-flight-freeze occurs. This is why gratitude is a skill which must be practiced and pursued, and the resulting peace and joy are well worth the effort.

Saturday, February 29, 2020

Virtue Development - Gratitude and joy

Chapter Five - Gratitude and joy
Part one- Gratitude is a choice; it is a way of living one’s life that fuels a sense of joy.



When one has faith in what really matters to the person, and the person is honest about it, there comes kindness as one extends that faith honesty with others and this brings a gratitude and joy which is ever present.

The virtue of gratitude does not spontaneously arise but comes from a decision making that chooses optimism over pessimism and is grounded in the experience that one is unconditionally loved by God, the Ground of Being.

A person can’t give what a person does not possess. A person can’t authentically love if the person doesn’t feel loved themselves. When one feels loved, fear is not possible and without fear, why would one attack, why would one operate on a principle of scarcity, why would one project guilt onto another for their unhappiness because they don’t experience unhappiness?

Kind people do not suffer and experience psychological and spiritual pain. They experience life from a position of gratitude and this gratitude fuels a sense of joy and well being.

What are you grateful for and how does this gratitude generate a sense of well being and joy? When a person practices gratitude and they experience the resulting joy other people sense this and the experience multiplies.

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