Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~Melody Beattie

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to navigate challenges and difficulties gracefully? No matter what's happening around them, their energy illuminates everything and things just seem more possible when they're around.

They will diffuse a situation with their presence, sometimes just by the sheer force of their possibility oriented nature. It might be a word, a gesture or a look. It might not even take that much. These folks ooze lightness and possibility and others just want to be in their playground.

You too can be a guiding force for goodness, even in the midst of some pretty negative events. Here are 4 ways that gratitude can help you navigate difficult situations, and give you the power to shift your point of view:

1. Discover What's Essential. Gratitude reconnects you with what is important in your life. Once you choose to engage life as if everything's a blessing, you'll discover it's the little things that matter. Your everyday happenings will become portals to happiness and you'll come to know what matters to you most.

2. Develop Emotional Resilience. You may not always feel grateful, but having a gratitude practice €" whether it's a journal, meditation or acknowledgement €" will help you shift these emotions. In a short time, as little as 3 weeks, you'll be able to shift from negative to positive emotions quickly. How powerful is that!

3. Access Your Inner Power. Gratitude grants you access to the inner dimensions where inner power and higher self reside. It connects you to the fabric of creation, humanity at large, and cosmic consciousness. This ongoing experience of super connection will create rock solid trust in Life. This shifts you from the world of the little €I€ and the €personal stuff.' You won't react to people and problems, personally. You'll realize that things have their own way of unfolding and that life is pretty fantastic.

4. More Options Become Available. As you become more immersed in the world of gratitude, possibility and positivity become your default point of view. The bandwidth of potential expands, and an infinite number of solutions arise when you encounter a problem. You come to know that reality is a lot more flexible than you had initially imagined. You become a maker, and shaper, of possibility.

As you become this wondrous weaver of possibility your very presence sparks possibility in others and co-creative solutions are made known. This shifts your consciousness to be the flow of life, instead of limiting the force of life.