Answering the last of the Soul Questions

Keep your eyes open to your mercies.  The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.
Robert Louis Stevenson ( from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertloui205032.html)

Waking Up

Hopefully we have shed some light on most of the before mentioned soul questions to help us wake up:

• Who am I?
• What is that I want?
• What is my purpose? (which would tie in with What gives me meaning? How can I serve?)
• What am I here to Learn?

I hope I made it clear that those are questions that no one can really answer for us.  We must seek inwardly for the answers if we really want to know.

Asleep or Awake?

What about the question : What am I grateful for? 

I believe this is probably the most important question to answer even though it may not be the easiest,  especially if we are operating from a low energy mental focus on "lack."

Are you forgetting to be grateful?  I often do and I need to remind myself how essential gratitude is in my own little life and in the world at large.  We need to be grateful.

How?

Psychology researchers, Robert Emmons and Mike McCullough, have conducted several studies into the nature and benefit of gratitude on the human experience.  They have concluded that the creation of gratitude lists or journals are highly beneficial for several reasons:

• They remind  us of reasons to be grateful. 
• Have been proven to help individuals  want to take better care of themselves;
• create more optimism, alertness, attentiveness, energy and enthusiasm in those who write down on a daily or weekly frequency what they are thankful for ;
• help people make progress toward their goals 
• increase the tendency of list keepers to  reach out, connect, appreciate and help others
• build more positive outlooks towards self, society and life in general.

                                                                                           ( Emmons Lab, 2017)
So?

Maybe it is time we wake up, take out our pen and paper and start jotting down what it is we are grateful for in life.  Keep the list handy for review on those days it is hard to remember.  :)

There is plenty to be grateful for.  We just need to take the  time to slow down and consider it.

All is well in my world.


References

Emmons, Robert ( 2017)  Gratitude and Well-being. Emmons Lab. Retrieved from http://emmons.faculty.ucdavis.edu/gratitude-and-well-being/.