Are You Taking Your Gifts For Granted or As Granted?

“Another day, another blessing and another chance at life. Take nothing for granted and think of every breath as a gift.”  ~ unknown

As you know, if you’ve been following along the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing this month’s posts on Gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful thing. So much so that it can actually boost your happiness by up to 25%. So today, I want to explore the power of focusing on the gifts and blessings that we often overlook so that instead, we can make certain we take time regularly to look at them through the lens of gratitude.  

It can be easy to take people, experiences, and things in our lives for granted. But to practice gratitude from a higher level of consciousness, we must not take things “for granted” but rather see them “as granted”. This small shift in language creates a powerful shift in mindset and moves us from an attitude of entitlement to humility. And even if we don’t like to admit it, an underlying sense of entitlement is actually the #1 thing that gets in the way of being grateful. The remedy for that entitlement? Humility! Which is something that I believe we all can work on. And what better time than the holiday season to practice this?

So, pause for a moment right now and think of the three greatest gifts that you’ve been granted in your life but have been taking for granted. Write them down! And then feel free to expand that list. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write down as many gifts as you can think of.

What gifts have you been granted? When was the last time you took time to be thankful for each of those gifts? Maybe you’ve been taking them for granted too long!

How does it feel to see those gifts as granted to you? Does it change your energy? Your attitude? Would it change your thoughts, emotions, actions?

When I do this practice, it sure does create a shift for me. Seeing that all the beauty and blessings in my life were granted to me, changes everything. It is humbling and awe-inspiring. And it brings a sense of hope for the future that is unexplainable. But it also fills me with love and patience. It brings me out of the vortex of being busy with accomplishing the next to-do on my list and grounds me in the present moment so that I don’t miss what’s happening right in front of me, for me.

As we go deeper into the holiday season, I want to implore you not to take people, experiences and things in your life for granted and instead to start seeing them all as granted. You’ll be amazed at how good it feels to make this shift. Oh and if you believe in God or another spiritual power, don’t forget to pause and say thank you for each of those gifts you’ve been granted.