REASONS TO MAKE GRATITUDE A GOAL
Why is gratitude important?
- Gratitude becomes mental and emotional medicine. John Hopkins Hospital asks each cancer patient to journal 25 gratitudes daily.
- Gratitude enhances greater performance. Research supports that a person high in gratitude has a 15-20% superior “cutting edge.”
- Gratitude escalates the happiness cycle, leading to more real friends.
Please allow me to share a person’s history of how gratitude can work. This person was one of over 1,000 clients impacted in our Spokane counseling agency over a four-year period. The established agency was based on the veracity of proven Biblical and psychological principles.
This client was a young, single mother who had attempted suicide six times. She had been in treatment with a psychiatrist for three years. Our counseling agency met her soon after she was rescued by her neighbor from her carbon monoxide attempt in her garage car.
The treatment protocol was to continue the medical science medication with a desired reduction over time. Then the following Reality Therapy was established:
- Determine if the client needs to enter a hospital for necessary safety, including a network of family and dedicated friends to monitor and ensure another life attempt is avoided.
- Diagnose the client’s condition and underlying issues of suicide attempts based on fear, inferiority, guilt, and/or anger.
- Reduce the four negative bases driving the client to depression and self-hatred by a restoration program.
- Help the client discover who she loves, who loves her, who she belongs to, who belongs to her, how she excels, and how others view her excelling. If a client has a void in all six of these discoveries, there is a high risk for destructive behavior.
Related to this client, there was only one reason she wanted to live, that being her three-year-old daughter. This child became my centerpiece to give this emotionally damaged mother PURPOSE. Four years of counseling saw the client successfully earn a Master’s degree and career in social work, marry a fantastic man, birth two more children, live a life on earth worthy to be honored, and now a life in heaven with her Lord Jesus Christ.
However, gratitude is impossible without HOPE. Hope is our anchor found in the Book of all books, especially for maximum efficient living. It gives me SECURITY no matter the storm. In addition, the Book of all books tells me I am an heir and co-heir of Christ (Romans 8:12). To put it another way, I have access to the real fortune because I am IN THE FAMILY. Such blessings fill my heart with REAL GRATITUDE!
