Hello, and welcome to lecture three. In our last lecture, we discuss the scientific proof of how gratitude works. And we talked about the benefits in your health benefits for your brain and the benefits for your life in general. In this lecture, I want to include experiential proof, more of an anecdotal type evidence of basically something, a story of how gratitude has helped me in my life, I have to admit that I'm a student of gratitude just like you are, I fail sometimes I don't always do practice gratitude the way I would like, and so I find it something that I need to keep coming back to. So if you don't do really well at it at first, that's okay. It's like any other practice, like practicing basketball and shooting hoops or writing or anything else.

The more you do it, the more those muscles develop. And so, if you practice gratitude and keep coming back to it, it becomes second nature. And so in this lecture, We're going to discuss experiential proof that gratitude works because right out the gate, I want you to see that you can put this into practice that it will benefit your life, that it will change your experiences and your perceptions that it will increase your abundance and that it will actually change your relationships and the outcomes in your life. And so, basically experiential proof that gratitude works. When I was living in the house that I was living in before the current home that I live in with my husband, I was living in a situation that was kind of rough, and it was just one of those situations in the neighborhood that was greatly impacting my mental health.

And I couldn't find a way to get out of that situation. I tried talking to my neighbors, I had tried legal action, I tried all kinds of things to try to get out of that situation because there didn't seem to be any kind of way to get myself out of the situation and stay where I lived. And so I needed to find a new home so that I could start my life over and just have a peaceful environment to live in. And so basically, the bad living situation got worse and things went downhill and things were really bad. And then it affected me very deeply. And what I ended up doing was I ended up starting to practice gratitude, because I felt like I didn't have anywhere to go, I was backed up against a wall, and it was literally killing my health.

And so when I started practicing gratitude, I decided that I would do it unconditionally. And then I would do it regardless of my circumstances. And that is one powerful way to practice gratitude. It seems counterintuitive, but it actually works. And as I practice gratitude in some of the practices that I'm going to show you, as well as just generally doing it throughout the day in reminding myself of good things and praying and meditating on those things. I would just do this, remind myself of all the good things in my life and be thankful for what was working out in that situation and the little mercies that helped me get through the day.

And so basically with my experience, it affected me very deeply. It doesn't guarantee that those results will happen in every situation. But with my experience, what I found was that I started to cultivate a deeper level of gratitude because I was already kind of vulnerable and it was almost like I was very open to that. And so basically one day after I'd been practicing for a few months, I got a phone call that the people that I had been looking at houses trying to find a new home that the builders of one of the homes that I absolutely was in love with wanted to swap my house for the house that I was in love with. Of course I would buy the house, but the price was a little more expensive for the new house. And so what ended up happening was I got to move to this beautiful wonderful home that I live in now.

And the builder just took my house and sold it And I bought this other house. And the reason that he did that was because it was less money so that he wouldn't be sitting on as much of an interest payment. And so it was a situation that worked out mutually. And things like this just never happened to me, it just doesn't happen. And after I'd been practicing gratitude, it's like all these doors just started opening up. And this was one that absolutely changed my life.

And I don't doubt when Be it that it was not coincidence that gratitude played a part. And I was actually doing some gratitude work on finding a new home and being grateful for the wonderful new home that would come to me. And so I believe that that personal experience shows that gratitude can actually do amazing things in changing your life. Now, I haven't had a lot of experiences like that. I've seen minor and very powerful experiences. But that was one of the more powerful ones that occurred that I could actually attribute to practicing gratitude.

And if you read books, And look at people's lives. And you notice people that have a very positive and grateful attitude. Even in challenging situations, you'll find that things do seem to mysteriously work out for them, things just come to them. They don't have a get out of jail free card when it comes to not having adversity and challenges, they may have fewer. In some cases, I believe that gratitude can actually attract better things to you. But when things do get tough, I found that somehow things do seem to work out for them.

And so I will actually have a lecture on that later on in the course. So we can talk more about how things do seem to work out for those who actively practice gratitude, either because it's in their nature, because they make a choice to do so. Or because they have overflowing feelings of it in circumstances. I think all of those are legitimate forms of gratitude, but practicing it is the most powerful kind, and the one that you have the most control over. And so in the next lecture, we're going to start talking about some of the ways that gratitude You can transform your life. And so I'll see you in the next lecture.