“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”—Albert Einstein

Gratitude is a beauty elixir and a secret to life that beautiful women know. Gratitude turns all the switches on. Focus on your gratitude, and you will create beauty and bliss chemicals all throughout your body. For example, interleukin, a natural chemical your body makes in the stimulation of T-cells, activates your immune system; dopamine and serotonin, which decrease pain and stress levels respectively, and oxytocin, referred to as the ‘love hormone’, are all natural chemicals manufactured in your system when you beam gratitude.

Nothing will dim the magic in our life or our looks as much as a poor attitude. You know the song by The Northern Pikes, ‘She Ain't Pretty (She Just Looks That Way)’? We do not just want to look beautiful, we want to be beautiful. On the days you feel less than gorgeous, focus on what you already love about yourself or anything in your life. It requires the most inspiring courage to unconditionally accept and appreciate yourself. But, once you do, you become a force of Nature!

It is so inspiring to see a woman who unconditionally accepts herself--Self acceptance is the most intoxicating scent a woman can wear. Start appreciating the sweetness of your life already. As you intentionally experience the privilege of life itself, you become imbued with a vibrancy that is electric. Like ripples in a pond, appreciation creates a magnetic effect on not only yourself, but also everyone around you.

If you desire to have something show up in your life, first acknowledge what you have. Gratitude is a magnet. Acknowledge, accept and celebrate what you already have, and watch it multiply! To health and beauty, and whatever else you desire, you become irresistible.

You are Magnetic

In his book Power Versus Force, Dr. David Hawkins completed 30 years of research and found that every emotion we experience can be measured. Can you guess what emotion calibrates the lowest? It is not fear or even anger, it is shame. Shame is the opposite of self-love, and puts us into a state of complete energetic inertia. Shame, which is under blame and guilt, is the closest to death at 20! Even a little righteous anger is healthier, at 150. Joy and gratitude are very high vibrations at over 500.

Why is this important to know? Because emotions are your offering to the Universe, the form of currency used to pay for experiences. You attract exactly what you radiate.

You cannot attract something higher than the level of vibration you are in. Therefore, being in a high vibration magnetically charges you to attract whatever you want in life, including health and beauty.

Choosing faith instead of doubt changes your biochemistry, literally flooding your system with good mood hormones that boost your happiness and immune system, soften stress lines and turn on your metabolism. Your thoughts alone can stimulate stress chemicals (like adrenaline and cortisol) or euphoric ones (like DHEA, dopamine or oxytocin).

Remember, there is no such thing as an idle thought. Beauty and health are the result of what you do. And what you do is the result of what you feel, which is the result of how you think:

Thoughts → Feelings → Actions = Results

Dawson Church, author of The Genie In Your Genes, says, “When you understand that with every feeling and thought, in every instant, you are performing epigenetic engineering on your own cells, you suddenly have leverage over your own health and happiness.”

Every morning, you can choose to invoke gratitude for the miracles that show up every day in your life. This beautiful magical planet keeps spinning in orbit, flowers open, babies are born, we get to breathe without effort and move through our day with intention and focus of our own choosing--nothing happens to us, everything happens for us.

We are more powerful than we realize, and harnessing and harvesting that power starts by cultivating a deep sense of enchantment and gratitude for the abundance and beauty of our life as it is, and when we marinade in that and revel in our joy, we discover an endless stream of more to enjoy flowing right to us. 

Shannon 'Shakaya' Leone