A Thirty-Days Practice of Gratitude to Transform Your Life

I am in Brazil visiting my family, but mostly spending time with my mother. She is almost 85 years young, and she is losing some of the recent memories, logic, and balance. She was recently hospitalized because she took the wrong medication and missed the right ones. After that, I decided to expedite my trip to Rio de Janeiro and spend time with her sooner than later.

When I was planning the trip, I was inspired to take my mother to visit her family in Salvador, Bahia where she was born. Salvador was the first colonial capital of Brazil. It is a beautiful city located in the northern part of Brazil, full of warm hearts and beautiful coastal living. You still see fishermen rising with the sun, breaking waves with their boats and eating their daily bread from the sea.

My mother hasn’t visited her hometown for fourteen years. I hadn’t been in Salvador since my grandparents fifty wedding anniversary thirty-eight years ago. A lot has changed since we both visited. The view from our balcony is breathtaking. This is a real vacation: I was able to capture the moments to see the sun rise and set, revere the stars sung by Brazilian poets, and contemplate the racing whitecaps from the sand. I am grateful for this beautiful land, the time with my mother and our family and even the loud music playing outside my hotel room until early morning.

During my last morning in Salvador before I return to Rio, in meditation, I received a message to share with my cousin. She is going through a challenging time in her family, career, and finances. I was called to share it with you too. It’s a 30-day gratitude practice that only takes less than fifteen minutes of your day to bring miracles to your life. I have done many times in the past few years, especially when I am called to improve an area of my life.

In simple terms, the practice is to connect with the energy of gratitude by having feelings of appreciation for the graces you know are coming and for the blessings already in our life. It will transform your life from inside out.

How can gratitude change your life?

When you feel gratitude you feel happier, have a more positive outlook in life and become aware of the many opportunities around that have been blocked by a lower level of consciousness. Grateful people are able to identify love, abundance, wellness, help, solutions, and more.

Studies have confirmed that when people feel gratitude, they reduce the stress hormones endorphins and adrenaline, and increase the feel-good hormones serotonin. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for awareness is activated in a higher frequency giving us more awareness, ability, capacity, and responsiveness.

The key word here is awareness. People who worry too much and too often can’t see solutions that are just in front of them. It’s like you lost your keys and they are in your pocket. This practice of gratitude takes the stress out of the equation. Also, grateful people are nudged frequently to act on their goals. They have impulses to take the appropriate steps.

People who are stressed have tunnel vision, they are unable to think and feel their way to success. They tend to perpetuate suffrage. People who don’t feel gratitude will find what’s wrong with the world where there is more “right,” “good” and “love” around.

Practicing gratitude for 30 days will re-set all habits of negativity, victimhood, depression, and self-sabotage. It will train your awareness to vibrate at a higher level. It will improve your energy and help you attract the people, things, and events that have been circulating your experience and to expel the distractions we tend to create.

How does it work?

Do this Gratitude Practice for 30 days:

In the morning:

As you wake up, before you open your eyes, thank God, the divine spirit, or any power higher than you (as you believe) for the outcomes you desire in your life. Imagine the best possible scenario happening to you and detach from the “how.” If you desire a job, imagine yourself getting up in the morning, getting dressed and going to work happy. If you desire a better job, imagine leaving your fantastic new job at the end the day and being very happy on your way home. Even if you know the actual job you desire, don’t get attached to it. The universe may have a better answer for you. Say “thank you” and feel the feeling of receiving that blessing.

In the evening:

When you go to bed at the end of the day, close your eyes, and thank God, the divine spirit or any power higher than you (as you believe) for every blessing you received in the day. Find them all. Remember every little gesture, gift or help you received. If your spouse made coffee in the morning, be grateful for that. If the children made the bed even half hazard, be grateful too. Perhaps your coworker invited you for lunch, you heard from a close friend, or the dog welcomed you home, just review your day and find all the blessings from it and give thanks. The more blessings you see today, the more you will be conditioned to look for them tomorrow. You will notice that the universe is orchestrating your world to work for you.

Spend five to seven minutes in the morning and five to seven minutes in the evening. It is this easy, but don’t underestimate the power gratitude.

This morning I was grateful for the wonderful trips I will make with my family in Salvador. I am thankful for the fantastic time we will have visiting the beaches and eating the traditional food of the area. I am grateful for the smiles my daughters will have connecting with their first and second cousins and negotiating their English and Portuguese with the family. I am thankful for watching my boyfriend body surfing in the beaches of Salvador, for my brothers with his children visiting Itapua Beach, the place where my grandfather used to take my mother and her siblings on vacation when they were children.

Tonight, I am grateful for the hotel where I stayed, the people who prepared the breakfast, the bellman who took my bags, the rental car driver who drove us to the terminal, the GPS and the signs that got me to the airport. I am grateful for my cousin and her boyfriend who met us at the airport to say goodbye; , the bookstore that had Louise Hay book “You can heal your life” in Portuguese, Brian Tracy’s book “Eat that Frog!” also in Portuguese for my nephew, and a short book on breathing meditation for my mothers to improve her awareness.

I am grateful for the airplane which took us from Salvador back to Rio de Janeiro, for my brother who picked us up at the airport and landed me his car. I am grateful for my friend Luiz Otavio who took me out for dinner and connected me to music. I am thankful for my sister in law who cooked a fantastic meal for us.

Gratitude is free. It only required a change in your mindset. You will always find what you look for. Wouldn’t be great if you look for the good in your life? Try this practice for thirty days and let me know about the changes you created in your life. Enjoy the beautiful journey.

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