Frame Each Day with "Vitamin G": Gratitude

What is wrong is always available, but so is what's great.

—Anthony Robbins

Gratitude is everything. How many people do you know who have everything—and are always miserable? Why is it that people who have so little always seem to be happy? Gratitude; it does a body good (to paraphrase that milk commercial from the eighties).

I learned a lot about gratitude from being a nurse. I learned the value of being able to swat away annoying flies from patients who couldn't. Have you ever thought about that? I'll bet not. You might think about it the next time a mosquito lands on you. When you see someone confined to bed, unable to move any part of his body, except perhaps to blink, unable to speak or swallow so he is fed through a feeding tube surgically inserted into his stomach, unable to bend his arms or legs to get the least bit comfortable, essentially stiff from the neck down, beads of sweat on his face, the daily intractable pain reflected in his eyes—and you understand that while you go home day after day, this is his life. A fly lands on his eyelids or nose and starts walking around. You appreciate the ability to swat away a fly.

That someone was the uncle who raised me. A man who fought in three wars and was afraid of nothing had a spinal cord stroke ten days after I gave birth to my first son—twenty-four hours after I moved halfway across the country. Most of us spend so much time complaining about all the things our bodies can't do that we often fail to appreciate the miraculous things our bodies can do.

Cancer patients taught me gratitude as well. There I was complaining about having to go pick up my kids, or driving in traffic, and I would think of my thirty-five-year-old niece who was enduring God-awful cancer treatments for the privilege of having one more minute, one more day—to do the same.

In his program Get the Edge (see end of chapter for details), Tony Robbins talks about "The Hour of Power." First thing in the morning you move, breathe, and think about everything for which you are grateful. Movement like walking, deep breathing, and engaging your body and your emotions together—being grateful for the people, the moments, the experiences that bring you joy. Tony says, "Movement is energy" and "emotion comes from motion."

I like to call it framing your day with gratitude. My son laughs at me because I take pictures of things every day to "appreciate" them. If one tiny flower blooms in the driveway, I take a picture and appreciate that it bloomed all by itself. I am grateful for sunrises and moonbeams. I love morning glories and plant them every year to remind me of my mother who died when I was eight. She loved morning glories and roses, which she grew under jars.

Tony says life is all about magic "moments"—not just big days or special events like birthdays. Be grateful for these moments each day—and capture them in a journal—or write them on a piece of paper and put them in a jar. What made you smile or laugh? Did you see a breathtaking sunset and go, "Wow!" Review these accumulated moments weekly or monthly. And at the end of the year, take them out and reflect on how many great moments you have had every day. And every day becomes an extraordinary life.

You need to be grateful in order to love yourself. You can't love yourself if you don't love your body. Your body loves you—all the time. Your body takes such good care of you that oftentimes you take for granted just how much your body does, until it breaks down. Gratitude is the antidote to stress. When you are grateful and happy, you secrete happy hormones. Your blood and saliva become more alkaline, and as you move and breathe, your tissues become oxygenated. By some accounts, exercise alone can cut your risk of cancer by 50 percent and eliminate depression—without side effects.

Elevate your mood even further and add some music and Tony's favorite positive mantra, "Every day in every way, I'm ___." Twelve years ago, that mantra for my husband was, "Every day in every way, I'm beating this, I'm cancer free." My defensive lineman, high school football playing husband was not one to walk around chanting affirmations first thing in the morning (or any other time), nor was he used to carrying around a pocket Angel to anchor those words throughout the day. But you must frame your day and continue to affirm and anchor thoughts of gratitude, as opposed to those of fear. It worked! He is cancer free, still. Try to spend the first hour—or thirty minutes, fifteen minimum—of your day this way.

How many reasons do you have to love your body and self? Prepare to be amazed. When I first read this information from my mentor and friend Dr. Robert Young, I was truly surprised. I never really thought about it. All the following calculations are courtesy of Dr. Young and I am very grateful because science is my passion—math is not. You will hear lots more about Dr. Young in many chapters that follow.

According to Dr. Young, "At maturity, the human skeleton contains about 165 bones, delicately and perfectly adjusted. There are approximately 500 muscles. The heart is 6 inches in length and 4 inches in diameter and beats 70 times per minute, 4200 times per hour, 100,800 per day, and 36,720,000 per year. At each beat, two and one-half ounces of blood are thrown out of it, 175 ounces per minute, 656 pounds per hour, or about 8 tons a day."

Now you get the math thing ...

Dr. Young continues: "All the blood in the body passes through the heart every three minutes....