Gratitude
Be Grateful For A New Start
By Robin Skeen
Nov 11, 2007

When things end, it is always sad and comes with a sense of loss. It could be the loss of a job, your marriage is ending, you have to move from the home you have come to love or anything else that involves sudden change. You might feel pretty disconnected and a little empty when these things occur. Some of it comes from being thrown out of your comfort zone. Most of us prefer our daily routines and dislike it when that is interrupted. A large part of those feelings come from feeling lost without the normalcy as this is seen as part of who we are.

A very effective tool to make change a little easier is to choose to be grateful for the new start. Gratitude will ease the painful transition and contribute to your growth. Gratitude is a great way to clean out the mental clutter that comes with change. To turn an unwanted situation into one that will allow you to grow, here are some exercises that will help.

The first suggestion is to buy a notebook or journal. Writing things down is a helpful way to declutter your thoughts and see your thoughts in a more substantial form. On the first page of your journal write this sentence, or your variation, at the top: "I feel grief for this loss because __________." Under that, start listing the reasons for your sadness, how you think it will affect your life and what you will miss about the person/place/situation.

Next, turn to a new page. At the top, write this sentence: "What I received and appreciate about the situation is __________." Start here listing the good memories of the situation and how it helped you in your life.

Now on to another page and at the top of the page write: "Letting go of this situation makes room for ______." What opportunities are now open for you? Is it a healthier marriage? Is it a higher paying job? Perhaps a better neighborhood with better schools for the kids? There are positives in the new situation that you will begin to notice once you have let go of the old.

If you are willing to look, there are always things to be grateful for in any loss, no matter how awful it may seem at first. Of course in some situations it will take time to gain benefits from your exercise in gratitude. No matter what the loss is, there is grieving for that loss. Let the grief come, but focus on what you are grateful for even in the midst of the loss. If you do these simple exercises as often as possible, your thinking will shift and healing can begin.