The Quiet Power of Gratitude: A Daily Practice That Changes Everything

How writing 10 gratitudes a day can regulate your nervous system, reconnect you to abundance, and help you move through life with clarity and self-respect.

In my coaching work, I often share a deceptively simple exercise, one that has helped me personally keep my head above water during some of the darkest chapters of my life:

Write down 10 gratitudes a day.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.
And simple certainly doesn’t mean superficial.

When life feels overwhelming, when your nervous system is constantly on alert, gratitude is not about “thinking positive.” It’s about retraining your system to see reality more fully, including the good that your brain may currently be filtering out.

Why We Stop Seeing the Good

When we’ve experienced stress, trauma, uncertainty, or prolonged emotional pressure, our nervous system does what it’s designed to do: protect us.

The brain shifts into:

• hypervigilance

• constant scanning for threat

• over-interpretation of danger

• coping mechanisms rooted in survival

This is not a flaw. It’s intelligence.

Your body and brain are doing their job. But over time, this protective mode can narrow our perception so much that we lose access to:

• pleasure

• support

• ease

• simple moments of grace

We stop receiving life.

Gratitude as Nervous System Regulation

A daily gratitude practice gently interrupts this loop.

By writing gratitudes, by hand, pen to paper, in the evening or in the morning, you invite your nervous system to register safety, stability, and presence.

You’re not denying reality.
You’re expanding it.

I usually recommend:

• 10 gratitudes

• Most days (not necessarily every single day)

• Morning or evening, whatever feels sustainable and nourishing

Some days, your gratitudes will be obvious.
Other days, they will feel forced. Both count.

Gratitude for “Negative” Situations (Yes, Really)

One of the most powerful shifts happens when we include challenging situations in our gratitude practice.

For example:

• A job with toxic dynamics…
  → but one that provides financial security

• A relationship that feels heavy…
  → but teaches clarity, boundaries, and self-trust
  This is strategic awareness.

Sometimes, the priority is not happiness, it’s safety.
And financial security can be the very thing that allows you to leave later, with dignity and clarity, rather than from panic or collapse.

Acceptance creates movement.
Resistance often keeps us stuck.

We Are Adaptive

We all have strategies:

• avoidance

• naming without feeling

• leaving without understanding

And yet, beneath those strategies, we are deeply intelligent beings.

Your body knows when to hold on.
Your psyche knows when it’s not safe to leap yet.

Gratitude helps us honor where we are, so we can move forward without self-betrayal.

Gratitude, Abundance, and the Art of Receiving

This work connects deeply with the teachings of Louise Hay, whose reflections on abundance have accompanied me through what I can only describe as a dark night of the soul, a period marked by depression, confusion, and profound solitude.

Her work reminded me of something essential:

Abundance begins with self-love and the willingness to receive.

When we believe we are unworthy, when we subconsciously reject goodness, prosperity—emotional, relational, or financial—has nowhere to land.

Gratitude reopens that channel.

By changing our inner dialogue, by softening our resistance, we become open and receptive to all good, not just money, but support, beauty, synchronicity, and life itself.

I share the audiobook I listen to on repeat here and that I share a lot in coaching :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnVFeUTbB6U)

Gratitude as a Bridge to Higher Energies

From this place, transitions become possible:

• leaving situations with your head held high

• choosing environments aligned with higher values

• welcoming prosperity in its many forms

Through alignment.

Gratitude doesn’t change life overnight. But practiced consistently, it changes how you meet life.

And that changes everything.

A Gentle Reminder

Gratitude is not about forcing positivity. It is remembering what is already here and allowing yourself to receive more.

You deserve a life aligned with your essence.

Always. 

Gabrielle 
Somatic Guide • Sound Therapist • EFT Practitioner 

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