Manna Monday | practicing gratitude

It's a new week, and I don't know about you, but for me, I live typically my life in a state of always looking ahead, looking to the next thing. There's a book called The Gap and the Gain, and the way I view my performance, my goals, where I'm going, is like a horizon that's never ending. The horizon's always moving. If you're driving in a car, and you're looking at the horizon, or in a boat on the ocean, you're looking at the horizon, the reality is even the further you go, the horizon is never ending. It's always in front of you.

And that mindset of what we call "living in the gap" provides you with this sense of a never ending goal, a goal that you can never accomplish. And recently, I read a book called The Gap and the Gain. And high performers, high achievers, entrepreneurs, business owners, traditionally will live in this gap mindset where no matter what, it's never good enough. And their life in that state can be can be full of anxiousness and stress. But when you look back, the gain, when you look back on what you've gained or how far you've come, then there's a sense of gratefulness, and a sense of accomplishment.

You can look back and say, "hey, this is how far I've come," when I'm walking people through their health journey. It's very easy to get caught in the mindset of always wanting more and better, and even what we would classify as perfection. Yet the reality is the human body will always exhibit some level of pain, discomfort, injuries, trauma. And if you're holding yourself to a standard of perfection, you'll never achieve it. And so for me, there's a practice that I do every day, and it's a practice of gratitude, or a practice of gratefulness.

There's some really, really pretty cool research on it, and what they show is that regular gratitude journaling has actually been associated with a five to 15% increase in optimism, and even a 25% improvement in sleep quality. That was done by Penn State. There's research that shows daily gratitude practices have been linked to reduced sensitivity to pain. There's data that shows that engaging in gratitude practices has been linked to a 30% reduction in depressive symptoms, and even a decrease in blood pressure. Just think about that for a second.

Think about all the physical changes that happen, and I think you can attribute all those changes to a decrease of mental stress. A decrease of stress of trying to always obtain perfection. And how do we- How do you practice this? Right. So if you're not in the rhythm of practicing daily gratitude, here would be my suggestion.

This came out of the book, The Gap and the Gain, and it's really simple. At the end of the day, what I would suggest is write three things from the day that you're grateful for. What are three accomplishments? What were three amazing things for the day? What were three things that stuck out to you that said, "wow, this was an incredible day."

And then draw a line, and write three things that you're looking forward to the next day. What are you hopeful about? Right? And when you have something in front of you that you're hopeful for, and you're looking behind you for something that you're grateful for, there's a sense of accomplishment. A sense of boost of self esteem.

That hey, I'm healthier than I think I am. One of the phrases I've been using this year is, "Barrett, you are healthier than you think you are." Because when I'm always looking ahead at the horizon of perfection and never achieving it, I'm always in lack, I'm never gaining enough ground. But when I look back, and I see how far I've come, there's this beautiful sense of, "hey, look how far I've come." And so for you, every night this week, start start this rhythm, this spiritual discipline of gratitude.

And I would even encourage you to put it before the Lord and say, "Lord, thank you so much for what you've done today, and I'm so hopeful for things to come." There's a beautiful scripture I like to meditate on, and it's that hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. If you're always looking to the horizon of perfection, and putting your hope in perfection, it's something that will rob the heart of gratefulness and gratitude. But when you look back, and you see how the Lord has fulfilled his purposes and promises in your life, there's this tree of life of, this fruit of life that comes. So, let's start a daily practice of gratitude.