{"id":1801,"date":"2019-12-12T16:08:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T22:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/?p=1801"},"modified":"2019-12-12T16:16:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T22:16:07","slug":"attitude-of-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/2019\/12\/12\/attitude-of-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Attitude of Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Being Grateful and Feeling Content<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every year during the season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, we all focus a little extra on feeling grateful.&nbsp; Throughout the holidays we get into the spirit of giving, loving one another, and feel thankful for all of the blessings in our life.&nbsp; This time of year, blessings may come in waves or a Chrsitmas miracle may find its way into your life.  However, once the fun ends or the day has passed, we may not all feel the overwhelming presence of gratitude.&nbsp; Maybe this time of year you\u2019re not exactly where you want to be in life or perhaps things aren\u2019t really going your way as this season can bring different hardships.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;In this week\u2019s blog, I\u2019ll be discussing gratitude and contentment and what those two words realistically look like in our daily lives.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If a friend were to ask me to list specific things I\u2019m grateful for, it would be an easy list to come up with.&nbsp; I would say\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I\u2019m grateful for shelter and the home I get to live in.<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the endless amounts of food I have at my disposal.<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the higher education I am currently receiving.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the multiple jobs I have to make a living.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for having a healthy and able body.<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for my freedoms and the protection my country provides.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for friends and family.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026 Just to name a few as the list could go on and on.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now if the same friend asked <em>why<\/em> I\u2019m grateful for those things, that would be an easy question to answer as well.&nbsp; I would say\u2026&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I\u2019m grateful for shelter and the home I get to live in because I know so many people are homeless and don\u2019t have a warm or safe place to stay.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the endless amounts of food I have at my disposal because not everyone has access to any amount of clean and nutritious food or even food at all.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the higher education I am currently receiving because so many people don\u2019t get the opportunity to learn or get an education.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the multiple jobs I have to make a living because I know so many others struggle to make ends meet or are unable to get a job to provide for themselves or their family.<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for having a healthy and able body because so many others are sick or disabled.&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for my freedoms and the protection my country provides because I know others live in a hostile, dangerous, or war stricken country with no place to feel safe.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for friends and family because I know many others have had a loved one pass away or are currently lacking a loving support system.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Now what if that same friend asked me how long my gratitude lasts or how often the feeling of gratefulness washes over me?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, there lies the problem.&nbsp; All of those times of gratitude are short lived or based upon something or someone else&#8217;s condition.&nbsp; I don\u2019t think anyone has a problem of feeling grateful when you compare yourself or your life circumstances to people at war, or others who are homeless, or those who go with eating only one meal a day, or someone who\u2019s suffering from a serious life threatening health condition.&nbsp; It\u2019s an easy assumption to make that we all feel appreciative or thankful for what we have, looking at those different situations<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The challenge however, is feeling grateful for what we have when we compare ourselves to others who have <em>more.<\/em>&nbsp; It\u2019s funny how our gratitude and full hearts slowly begin to disappear when you step into someone\u2019s brand new glamorous home, or when you walk through the mall and see all of the \u201cmust haves\u201d in trending winter fashion.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we were to add a \u201cdot, dot, dot\u201d after each thing we are grateful for, it might go a little like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I\u2019m grateful for the higher education I am currently receiving because so many people don\u2019t get the opportunity to learn or get an education&#8230;but I wish I was smarter and could get A\u2019s in all my classes to pass with honors and guarantee a job after graduation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for the multiple jobs I have to make a living because I know so many others struggle to make ends meet or are unable to get a job to provide for themselves or their family&#8230;but I wish I was manager of my team so I could have a higher paying job and afford a wealthy lifestyle.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>I\u2019m grateful for having a healthy and able body because so many others are sick or disabled\u2026but I wish I looked like that super fit girl\/guy I see in the gym all the time and had a better body.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is where change needs to happen to live a truly and continuously grateful life.&nbsp; I think we all need to work on finding <em>contentment<\/em> with gratitude rather than just little bursts of gratitude here and there.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we can work towards being grateful despite who or what we\u2019re comparing ourselves to, then we can develop a more deep and real sense of gratitude that lasts instead of the short lived gratefulness that comes when we make a comparison to others with less&nbsp; or the feeling we get when we reflect on our life\/accomplishments each year.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it\u2019s also beneficial to point out that contentment doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t have goals or things you\u2019re striving to change in your life.&nbsp; It simply means not allowing your \u201cwants\u201d to  take over and not letting your \u201cdot, dot, dots\u201d keep you from your sense of gratitude.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we all focus on gratitude this holiday season, it\u2019s important to also focus on contentment too.&nbsp; It\u2019s not just about being grateful for what you have that others don\u2019t.  It\u2019s more about being grateful for what you have in spite of what others have that <em>you <\/em>don\u2019t.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gratitude and contentment challenge: Pay attention to what steals your gratitude in each moment and make an effort to feel grateful and content with you and you alone when it\u2019s the most difficult.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope you enjoyed this week\u2019s blog and have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As always, stay fit, stay healthy, stay beautiful Warhawks.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talk soon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ashley Borowski<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being Grateful and Feeling Content Every year during the season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, we all focus a little extra on feeling grateful.&nbsp; Throughout the holidays we get into the spirit of giving, loving one another, and feel thankful for all of the&nbsp;<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/2019\/12\/12\/attitude-of-gratitude\/\">&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7881,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,43770,43776],"tags":[595081,77914,595082,595108,687395,595109,278,348,2889,28508],"class_list":["post-1801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-uww-campus","category-warhawk-fitness-2","tag-ashley","tag-attitude","tag-borowski","tag-contentment","tag-grateful","tag-gratitude","tag-health","tag-holidays","tag-life","tag-mental"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/warhawkfitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}