Self-Development and Gratitude: The Medicine That Costs Nothing

Gratitude is a medicine by itself. When we become grateful, we become at peace with ourselves and our environment. It is the natural state for a human being to be in.

What if the healing we keep searching for is already in our hands?

The Healing Power of Gratitude

Many people struggling with their mental health can benefit from practicing gratitude every day, alongside professional care. If we count our blessings every night before sleeping, our sleep can become much sounder and deeper. Gratitude journaling is a real practice, and research suggests it helps us mentally and spiritually. Just listing 5-10 things to be grateful for each day can turn us from being negative to being positive.

Everyone Has Something to Be Grateful For

Everyone has reasons to be grateful. Even a person who feels they have nothing is still alive, and should be grateful that they are still breathing. Allah reminds us that if we tried to count His favors, we could not enumerate them (Qur'an 16:18).

This changes whom we look to as role models. We should look up to those who are ahead of us in self-development, so that we can learn from them. We should also spend time with people who have little materially, yet are grateful for what they have, and learn gratitude from them. The Prophet (SAW) advised us to look at those who have less than us, not at those who have more, since this makes us less likely to belittle Allah's favors upon us (Sahih Muslim 2963). Rather than looking up to people with a lot of wealth but no gratitude, remember the saying: some people are so poor that all they have is money.

Gratitude Is a Treasure

When we count our blessings, Allah gives us more to be grateful for. He says in the Qur'an: "If you are grateful, I will surely increase you" (Qur'an 14:7). Gratitude is a treasure, if only we learn to cultivate it. It gives us contentment on our journey of self-development, something wealthy people may lack and may spend enormous amounts of money trying to acquire.

It costs nothing to be grateful, yet it enriches us in so many ways, as we grow every day to be better than we were yesterday.