We hope everyone is having a grateful day. We are grateful to be a part of this group and we would love to hear from everyone out there.

Eileen and Kathy

I know I have posted this before, but another chance for me to share my own gratitude and celebration ritual.

Every day, I write to an email friend all that I am grateful for and all I have in my life to celebrate. She, in return, writes hers to me.

It is a simple, and life-altering way to start a day. Gratitude works.

Anno, I think this is such a great idea. I love it. YOu two must be very close.

I must share that many summers ago, I chose to begin writing my blessings daily. The kids were all home for the summer and I wanted to stay focused on the positive instead of the day in and day out sibling battles. Keeping three kids occupied on thsoe long summer days and nights was a challenge.

Anyway, when I began, the lists were short. As time wore on, my focus throughout the days became, what will I thank God for tomorrow? It's amazing how I began focusing on the good in life. It's life changing.

Now I spend a little part of my mroning journaling and quiet time thanking God for very specific happenings from the day prior. Things as simple as weather, calls for friends, things people say, books, forum posts, etc.

Gratitude is an attitude, and a great one too.

Gals, what prompted you to write your book? Want to share?

I'm grateful that you are here and sharing with us. I support your mission completely!

Hi diane, I love your picture and thanks for your support.

Hi Dotsie, We, like you started to write down things everyday that we were grateful for. We were in awe of how things were connected. Like a pretty flower that needs a stem to hold it up and roots in the ground and rain water to help it grow and sunshine for nourishment. One thing kept leading to another and we were having fun with our new awareness of what to be grateful for. We wanted to do something that would make a difference and challenged ourselves to come up with five things for every day of the year. We created a theme for every month and wrote an essay for each month also. Hence our book. Now we are known as the gratitude ladies and we promote gratitude every chance we get because it is so life changing. It is a great practice to have and one that is getting more popular every day.

Hi Anno, I love the idea of gratitude partners by email. Eileen and I did it by phone but email is a great idea. Thanks.

I agree that gratitude is so awesome...but sometimes when a person is really depressed or angry it's hard to feel gratitude...how do you encourage someone who's in a low place to move into an attitude of gratitude...

You know the ones who see the glass as half empty...aren't always grateful to have the glass...

Great question Jane. I'm looking forward to their answer.

I'd also like to know what you both with the bad things that happen in life. I know we are to search for the blessings among the muck. I think it takes practice. I'm getting better at it. There always see to be a positive spin you can put on bad news.

No matter what happens in our life we have the ability to choose our attitude. Yes, it can be hard to feel grateful when we are really depressed or angry. But by being more attentive to opportunities to express gratitude, we increase our opportunity to feel it. Our thoughts precede our feelings so the more we think gratitude thoughts, the better our chance to feel gratitude. Counting our blessings does not make our problems go away overnight, but it can reduce their importance and help them to fade. At first we may have to fake it. Eileen and I wrote down five things each day that we were grateful for. More than that, we learned to appreciate those things we often took for granted--like breathing and our hearts beating and family and friends, etc. We also looked for what we wanted to have happen and we focused on the things we liked. Having a partner really helped because we could always remind each other to look for the good in the bad. Gratitude is one of the highest vibrations available to us and those who practice gratitude are happier and healthier. The more we practice gratitude, the less likely we are to become depressed.

Kathy