Gratitude is such a beautiful gift you can give yourself. It has so much power it sometimes feels crazy that such an easy practice can have such a profound and positive impact on life.

Not only can it make you feel warm and fuzzy about the good stuff in life but it can also act as a buoy when you are in the stormy waters of anxiety.

I never really let myself accept that I suffered from anxiety until after I had my first daughter and it became a lot more obvious. My anxiety plays out in the form of catastrophising (thanks to Brene Brown I now have a word for it).

I remember on a trip to the UK, Matt and I were heading to London for the day and leaving our daughter with my sister. As we walked out the door I turned to my sister and said “the password to my laptop is x so if anything happens to us then you will have all the info you need and you can show Emily how loved she was”

I’ll never forget the looks that Matt and Tor gave me, it suddenly made me realise the terrible things that had been going around my head weren’t ok and it was maybe time to have a think about how to manage them.

Practicing gratitude is my main way of dealing with my anxiety, if I start to feel like I’m heading down the rabbit hole then I start to list all the things I’m grateful for and this generally stops the descent pretty quickly and I can refocus.

If you do suffer from anxiousness then know that you are not alone, the best thing I did was admit to myself that I was struggling and this allowed me to start to find some tools to help me manage it.

For tips on how to bring more gratitude into your life then join my Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/flourishsupportingwomen

Tell us…. what are you grateful for today?