A Coach's method on gratefulness....Friday's BOLD LAW ,,,,,," What you focus on expands !

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” —Zig Ziglar

If what we focus on expands and, if what Ziglar said is correct; then it would be wise to expand our gratitude, wouldn’t it? Focusing or thinking about something and actually feeling it are different things. To focus and think is a conscious, cognitive action. To feel an emotion, the unconscious mind has to be engaged.

You cannot consciously say to yourself, “feel grateful” and expect to have much of a result just as you cannot say, “… decrease my heart rate, increase my oxytocin production…”

To have a feeling, our brain must produce the chemical associated with that emotion. Yes – all emotions are chemically based (oxytocin being the hormone of ‘love’ – even your dog secretes this when they see you or hear your voice).

For your brain to produce the chemical that gives you the feeling of gratitude, you must connect enough neurons in the right way to trigger the physiological response. Good luck trying to do that consciously!

There is a better way than simply writing in your daily “gratitude log” - and that is to take a moment and clearly visualize something or someone for whom you are grateful. I mean see it as if they are in front of you… look through your own eyes to see what you’ll see, hear what you’ll hear, and feel the feeling.

This week I walked a client through a simple exercise to illustrate the point. It took less than two minutes and she shed some (happy) tears as a result…

“Close your eyes” I said… “Imagine you are in a room and the three people you told me you are grateful for are standing there… waiting for you. Walk up to the first one (her mother) and whisper in her ear why you are grateful. Now listen as she tells you why she is grateful for having you in her life…” I repeated the same process for the other two people and watched as my client’s face flushed with emotion.

The process of eliciting the chemistry of gratitude is more powerful than just reciting things from a notebook. If you want to train your brain to find more of what you want; do this exercise and feel the feelings. By doing so, you’ll light up more neurological connections and stimulate your brain to seek out more things for which to be grateful every day.

Feel it to expand … and your unconscious mind will focus on it more and more.

“Get it Done in ’21!”

Contributed by KCN leader Don Aldrich & KW MAPS NLP Coach George Gillas