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How an 'attitude of gratitude' will increase your happiness

'Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things' Robert Brault

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Frances A Masters
Psychotherapist, Coach, Writer. Live your best life.
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Gratitude makes you happier. Here's how...

I encountered a very wise man a little while ago.

I was giving a talk for a holistic group. The venue was the upstairs room of a social club.

'What's your talk about?' the stranger asked as I passed through the downstairs bar.

'Lifting depression' I responded.

'Well, if you want the cure for depression', he said, 'pass on one tip from me..'

'What's that?' I asked

'Be grateful', he said with a smile, and went back to his pint and newspaper.


Gratitude and happiness

Many of us have come to believe that true happiness comes from the acquisition of things; more money, a bigger house, the smartest car. These can help but, the deeper truth is that the choice to be happy comes from within.

And there is little doubt that expressing gratitude makes you happier.

One of the quickest ways to enhance your mood and harness motivational energy is to adopt an 'attitude of gratitude'. People who regularly practice gratitude exercises are reported to have more energy, increased emotional intelligence, less depression and anxiety, better sleep and greater sense of connection.

There are many ways to practice.

The one I often recommend to clients involves 'end of day gratitude'.

As you fall asleep, there is no better reflective exercise than to consider those positive things from the day for which you are grateful, whether they are goals you've achieved, places you've been, people you've encountered or even sights, sounds or fragrances you have savoured and enjoyed.

This daily exercise helps you 'rewire your brain' to search for the positives and, in my experience, is a powerful antidote to the negative lens which can underpin low mood and depression.

Go to the profile of Frances A Masters

Frances A Masters

Psychotherapist, Coach, Writer. Live your best life.

Do you want to be happier and more resilient? Some people seem to just 'bounce back' no matter what life throws at them. We can't choose many of life's events but we certainly do have a choice about how we respond. My passion for mental health began 25 years ago when I suffered postnatal depression and realised the help I needed simply wasn't there. The pills didn't work. In fact they made things worse. What I really needed was to understand how anxiety, depression and emotional ill health can develop. I needed to learn good 'mind management' skills which would act like a 'psychological inoculation' against future problems. When I recovered, I made a decision to find out how and why I had become so depressed and made a personal pledge to do something to provide the kind of help for others which I had needed. I wanted to prevent people suffering unnecessarily. So I embarked on a personal and professional journey and, along the way, developed a brand new approach to health and well-being. My journey began with four years of traditional counselling training, followed by a postgraduate diploma in psychotherapy. I studied cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, coaching and cognitive neuroscience. I built up 30,000 hours professional experience which I brought together into the new happiness and resilience programme l named 'Fusion.' I also wrote a book about how to resolve post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), founded a therapeutic coaching charity and trained volunteers to work in this new way. This training programme would later become the nationally accredited Fusion Therapeutic Coaching Diploma and Distance Learning Skills Certificate. Now... The journey continues. Now I want to reveal all my professional secrets about good mind management to as many people as possible through social media and by training Fusion Breakthrough trainers from all over the world. One of them could be you... Something new.. Something different.. Something which lasts.. What if you could experience one day which could actually change your life for good; giving you your own eureka moment; not only helping you create a vision of the life you want to live, but actually give you the real skills to get there and stay there? Fusion is a tried and tested system which combines the best of psychotherapy and coaching into a powerful new formula for lasting change. My aim is to help and empower as many people as possible to feel their best, be their best and live their best lives. Perhaps I could help you too....

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