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But I am grateful anyway.

If we are friends on Facebook, you might have seen my most recent Facebook live. Here it is in case you didn’t:

However, I want to re-cap for you just in case you aren’t a fan of those things. So I just completed my second round of reading The Magic (The Secret) by Rhonda Byrne and I really wanted to provide a review.

Right away at the beginning of the book I begin to relate to Rhonda as she writes: ” My story is a perfect example of what life is like when a person is ignorant of gratitude, and what happens when you make gratitude a part of your life. If I had been asked six years ago if I was a grateful person, I would have answered, “Yes for sure I’m a grateful person. I say thank you when I receive a gift, when someone opens a door for me, or when a person does something for me.” The truth is I was not a grateful person at all. I didn’t know what being grateful really meant, and just saying the words thank you on the odd occasion certainly didn’t make me a grateful person.”

This was me.

I wrote thank you notes. I said thank you to anyone holding the door open or if you did something. And I thought I was grateful. I even had friends talking about practicing gratitude and thought to myself “Oh I’m good on that department.”

Ha. I wasn’t.

“I didn’t know what being grateful really meant, and just saying the words thank you on the odd occasion certainly didn’t make me a grateful person.” – Rhonda Byrne, author, The Magic (The Secret)

So today as I am driving home from swimming, I could barely make out the outline of the mountains that are always in view on the way home. Living in Salt Lake City does provide some amazing scenery, hence the blog title. However, you will note the title of this post specifically… the inversion was so bad today. It was not pretty. I noticed the lack of mountains and said to myself “ugh, so gross” and I was immediately triggered to be grateful for the air that I breathe.

It’s WORKING!

I was so excited to see the proof that gratitude is becoming an automatic behavior. As we are wrapping up 2016 and going into 2017, many people make New Years Resolutions to cut out bad habits and start new ones. As I have been writing down my things I am grateful for and journaling about gratitude for the past 2 months, this is something I will be keeping in 2017. If you are looking for a resolution for yourself, or if you are reading this on a random day in August, consider incorporating the practice of gratitude into your life.

A few specific examples of this practice over the last two months:

• Just ONE day after the practice of being grateful for the “unexpected” things that happen, I unexpectedly found the cheapest flights to Spain on the vacation dates we already had set and we booked these flights within 30 minutes. I am talking $443 RT pp cheap. Yeah.

• Two days after practicing being grateful for money, I finally had some resolution to my outstanding state taxes from 2014. I am writing this at the END of 2016.

• I was on my way to Boise, Idaho in my rental car. Being unfamiliar with the car I did not really notice when the gas gauge was at about 1/3. All of the sudden, the light came on. No worries, I’ll just stop at the next exit. Drive about 15 more miles, no exit. It’s cool, any minute now right? 5 more miles, nothing. So I used google to find a gas station on my route. It’s 30 miles away, however there is one 15 minutes out of the way if I take the exit in a few miles. CRAP. Commence gratitude. Well, I guess back up… I journaled the day before that I was grateful for a safe trip and an awesome work presentation. Fast forward again, I began saying out loud how thankful I was for a safe trip to Boise and that I had the right amount of gas to get me there. I said out loud how thankful I was for the gas station that was right at the next exit. Remember it was actually 15 minutes out of the way once I exited according to Google, which knows everything, right? WRONG. Gratitude for the win again. There it was. The gas station even said “Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere” on the front of it. I made it safely.

Pretty incredible, yeah? Consider incorporating gratitude into your life. Grab the book The Magic (The Secret) by Rhonda Byrne to assist you on your gratitude journey.

Currently reading: “Happy Pocket Full of Money” by David Cameron Gikandi and “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne

Currently listening to: “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Live” by Mark Manson (1. This does seem a bit ironic considering the post, 2. Caution, language)

Andrea

Andrea Cannon is a pharmacist, triathlete, gratitude practicer, and avid traveler. For both business and pleasure, she has taken more than 250 flights yearly for the past 3 years. In addition to being a travel hacking enthusiast, Andrea enjoys hiking and spending time with her husband (Austin) and dog (Dex). You can connect with her via her blog www.beaUTAHfulworld.com or on Instagram @andreafcannon .

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