And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]; but if you deny, indeed, My punishment is severe.’ ” (14:7)

We discussed what the Shaykh had taught us in a course on “Discourses from the Quran” that we attended in London a few years ago and we remembered how he had mentioned that gratitude is something you ARE and LIVE, not just DO. So through your actions you are grateful, not just doing a ritual for a few minutes when you feel like it, thinking your gratitude action is done for the day (or week or month!).

I started thinking about being grateful and  made me realise that you can’t be grateful and complain at the same time. Go on, try it!

So every minute we spend complaining, it’s taking us away from focusing on all that’s good and counting our blessings. Rather we are left feeling more horrible and finding more ways to deepen our sorrow- not a very positive place to be in!

And  I think we moan far more than we actually think we do – from the time the alarm goes off in the morning (Oh boy, time to wake up already?!), we have niggles about everything. Or is it just me thats grumpy when things don’t work out?! Good exercise to practice – observing how many complaints we have in a day – nothing like starting a complaining journal to give us a reality check!

Perhaps I’ll add this to the things I want to do to do better in 2018 i.e simply complain less! It’s a practical way to show gratitude as well in every situation or moment.

Being grateful, one less complaint at a time,
M4life

There’s always so much to appreciate – if we can be aware!