Gratitude and compassion are two key qualities that actively work to connect us to ourselves and others, lift our spirits and feed our souls. When we make time regularly to truly acknowledge the wondrous beauty and bountiful blessings in life it shifts us from our mantra of mundane complaints. We cannot simultaneously be depressed and grateful, we cannot be angry and compassionate. These are our balance emotions and we can use them to bring more acceptance, peace, understanding, happiness and connection into our lives immediately.
Gratitude begs us to step back for a moment and really see what is good right in front of us, many times the things we enjoy day to day we take for granted. But really opening our eyes to what is good opens our heart as well allowing love, light and life to find a place in our soul as a result. Search out the beauty, the fun, the gifts of everyday living and celebrate the role it has in your life. You will immediately find more to appreciate once you make it a habit to appreciate.
Compassion is often confused with sympathy and pity but it is more beautiful and complex than that. Compassion requires us to feel with our hearts and connect with our soul the experience before us in a deeper, more loving and understanding way. It allows us to make room for understanding and forgiveness first for ourselves and then for everyone else. An added bonus of compassion is that when we struggle or are in pain we can appreciate that the experience we have is shared with others known and unknown to us. This knowing can help us to learn compassion for others through the parts of our lives we want to avoid and are hard pressed to find value in. The judgements, isolation, anger that turn us against ourselves and each other all drop away as compassion increases and gives us a softer view of everything.
