Why Choosing Gratitude Strengthens Your Relationships

May 2, 2024

If you want to have happy, healthy relationships, start with an attitude of gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t just positive thinking. It actually makes a difference. Having an attitude of gratitude can be a change agent in your relationships. How? Choosing to find something to be grateful for can actually transform how YOU see the relationship. It changes you. It changes your perspective. It changes your heart. And, when YOU are different, the people who are in relationship with you have to relate to you differently.

Gratitude is also something you can control. There’s a lot of things in your relationships that you CAN’T control. You can’t control other people. You can’t control a lot of circumstances. BUT, you can control choosing to have an attitude of gratitude.

Why not choose to have an attitude of gratitude, if its something you can control and it can actually make a difference?

Studies have even shown that gratitude produces chemicals in your brain—dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin—that make you feel peaceful and happy. 

An attitude of gratitude is something you can start the moment you wake up. Before you get out of bed, make a list of things you're grateful for. Even if you can't think of anything to be grateful for, the simple act of trying to be grateful will change your brain chemistry. 

The Bible says, “In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing” (Philippians 2:14 TLB).

When you complain about something, how does that help you? If you complain about your spouse, your children, or your other relationships, does it change any of those things?

Here’s the problem: The longer you know someone, the more likely you take that person for granted. With the passage of time, it becomes easier to focus on that person’s faults and the bad times instead of the happy times.

That’s why it takes effort on our part to choose to have an attitude of gratitude for the people in our lives.

What is something you can be thankful for in each of your relationships right now?