How Gratitude can help Change your Life Instantly

Written by Tobi Warzinek

Change your life instantly! Use gratitude NOW and discover happiness for free!!! I know, the title of the blog might come across a bit cheesy, but bear with me. I actually mean to talk exactly about the fact that gratitude can help you to change your entire life in an instant. In this blog I will show you how it actually works.

Attention is Everything

The way we experience life mostly depends on the way our attention has been conditioned. Growing up to be who we are right now took an inconceivable number of learning-steps. Our mind has learned from countless sources how to behave and what to do on a consistent basis. Whether it’s culture, upbringing, parenting or education, friends or media – the mind is constantly shaped by what we feed into it.

The way our mind moves generates resonance within our emotional being. This in turn creates a distinct set of actions and behavior – the character. Our sense of self is basically composed of the habitual movements of mind and its many reflections in the emotional and physical world. The fact that our entire being is “made-up” and caused by various conditions shows that we have the power to change it in ways that are potentially beneficial and uplifting. But how?

Directing your Attention Wisely

One of the ways to skillfully direct your attention is by directing it to things that are good in nature. You might consider things around you, other people or yourself. You can think about good things that happened to yourself or others either in the past or in the present. This will shift your mental-emotional state instantly. And in turn this habit will give you better ideas and helps you to make more constructive decisions.

Happiness is the fuel of success and wisdom. You can manage to create your own happiness by directing your attention in useful, positive and uplifting ways. Thus your presence will not only be beneficial to yourself but to other people around you as well. This exercise is particularly good for you if you are in the habit of feeding on negative thoughts and emotions continuously. In essence, we need to train the mind to let go of negativity and cultivate positivity in order to create an uplifting vortex of energy helping us to be healthy, happy and to go deep into the practice of meditation.

Change Life Instantly with Gratitude

You might get the points above but still wonder about my idea that gratitude changes your life instantly, right? How? The answer to that question is rather simple. Every shift of attention creates direction in your life. It’s like when you’re driving a car and you sit behind a steering wheel. Each time when you are steering, you change the direction of the car instantly. Each mental state has its own direction. Some of the states lead to more misery, suffering and problems – others lead to more happiness, connections and solutions.

This means that if you want to change your life you can only do so right NOW. And you can start with your mental state. Your thoughts translate into emotions and emotions translate into actions. So if your mind is habitually grateful, you have more energy than those who dwell on problems. Having more energy, you can make a real difference. It all starts in the mind. When the mind is at ease, actions are leading to happiness and peace. When the mind is tense, actions lead to more tension. So we could say that the best way to “change the world” is by changing your mind right now.

And like anything in life – you get good at what you continuously do. Whether we are predominantly nourishing positive or negative mental qualities with your attention is usually up to the conditioning we have received. Mindfulness gives you the freedom to choose wisely based on the directions of mental qualities and actions. So I encourage you to reflect frequently: What is the direction of my current mental state? If you find that the direction leads to more harm for yourself and others, abandon it and replace it instantly with gratitude. Congratulations, you have just saved the world from your own tension!

More Articles

Tobi Warzinek

Phuket Meditation Center

Tobi Warzinek

Tobi Warzinek - Meditation Teacher

About The Author

Tobi Warzinek has been working as a spiritual guide and mentor since 2009. His journey started in early 2002 when he entered the Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Rabten Choeling. He spent approximately 7 years in the community and studied the Tibetan language, mind-training and various meditation methods. Additionally he trained in traditional monastic debate and Buddhist philosophy. In 2011 he subsequently began practicing within the “Forest Tradition” in Thailand. Altogether he has dedicated his life to the exploration and refinement of introspection throughout the past 18 years.

The Comment Section

We hope you enjoyed reading the article. Feel free to leave some good comments (Everybody can benefit from your skillful contributions!) I will simply delete Self-promotion (e.g. “I love your article. Please check this link to my own site.”). I might post your links if they are truly relevant and contribute to the readers experience though. We are open for meaningful discussions and hope that this article serves as an inspiration for you.

2 thoughts on “How Gratitude can help Change your Life Instantly”

  1. Gratitude is truly the most powerful transformative force we have at our disposal and sadly most of the people don’t want to utilize it.

    Reply
  2. One thing that I have noticed that many people confuse gratitude with happiness or excitement. Gratitude is more about making a positive assessment of a situation/gift, finding it beneficial and then finally directing the attention to the benefactor (the one who did us favor).

    Reply

Leave a Comment