After just coming through Thanksgiving, most of us became more aware of the need to feel thankful and grateful for many of the wonderful blessings in our lives. Maintaining that attitude is more difficult, and we tend to regress into an attitude of despair or ‘lack of,’ or focus on what’s missing, wishing things were different and losing sight of all that is good in our lives.
Raise Your Vibrational Frequency
Maintaining an ‘attitude of gratitude’ is vital for our physical, mental, and emotional health. It truly affects us in a positive way down to the cellular level. According to Sanaya Roman (Living With Joy, chapter 10), whenever we give thanks, we increase the light in our aura. The feeling of Gratitude comes from the heart, and as we feel grateful, we open our heart, which is the door to our soul. We can purify our aura and raise our vibrational frequency when we give thanks.
Gratitude resonates in our body and vibrates with our heart center; it opens our heart and heals the physical body. Gratitude links the ’emotional body’ to the heart and soul. The more appreciative and grateful we are, the higher the vibration.
Gratitude takes us out of our heads, out of critical and judgmental thoughts. It silences our doubt, worry, and skepticism. It is calming and reassuring and allows us to remain open.
Whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will increase in your life.
The Practice of Daily Gratitude
Practicing Gratitude is essential to our well-being. Making a conscious effort to become aware of all that we have to be grateful for is an excellent exercise in ‘making it real’ by reminding ourselves of so much that we take for granted or even dismiss as incidental.
Because of this, we must remind ourselves to feel grateful and appreciate what we already have: health, home, job, money, friends, and family.
We can be grateful for moments that bring joy, make us smile, and make us feel calm or safe. We can be grateful for a song that brings back special memories, makes us happy or hopeful or like dancing.
Sometimes, we may find it more difficult or seemingly impossible to feel grateful when everything seems wrong. This is when we must step back and look through a wider lens encompassing the bigger picture.
We may have to start with the most basic things, such as indoor plumbing and electricity, a bed to sleep in, a loving pet, the sunshine, the sound of rain, your neighbor, and the nearby coffee shop, and then build from there and expand your feeling of Gratitude.
There is always, always, something to be grateful for!
The challenge…
Every day, we face interruptions, delays, challenges, personality conflicts, and disappointments. We feel overwhelmed and can’t see the lessons in these experiences.
Gratitude, as simple as it sounds, can get us through the most stressful of times. Melody Beattie teaches us to say, “Thank you for these problems and feelings. Thank you for the way things are. I don’t like this experience, but thank you anyway.” Are you surprised by this concept?
Melody Beattie explains that Gratitude is the ‘key’ that unlocks positive energy in our lives. (“Language of Letting Go”) She encourages us to “Apply gratitude to everything and then let it work its magic… to say ‘thank you’ until you mean it.” She explains that “Gratitude turns problems into gifts, and failures into successes, and the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.”
I know that’s a lot to take in! It feels counter-intuitive to be grateful for something that isn’t positive or pleasurable, but that is the ‘shift!’ Everything I’ve read on Gratitude over the years insists that Gratitude is a powerful process for shifting your energy and bringing more of what you want into your life. Be grateful for what you already have, and you will attract more good things!!
Try it! You will feel calm as fear, anxiety, and worry leave your body. An Attitude of Gratitude – it is a choice!
Choose to Practice Gratitude. Become intentional about it. Take every situation and find a reason to be thankful, remembering that there is a lesson, or an awareness, or a reminder.
Practice questioning and discovering what it’s trying to teach us and learn the lessons. Identify it and then flow Gratitude to it; thank it for happening. We must force Gratitude until it becomes habitual.
Gratitude helps us stop trying to control outcomes. Gratitude teaches us to ‘trust’ the Universe (God, Higher Power) for synchronistically aligning everything in our highest good, no matter how perplexing or confusing or how angry or frightened we may feel.
This is the more challenging concept of Gratitude: to feel grateful for the pain and agony that a situation or a person causes us. Understanding that it is pushing us to grow, to learn a painful lesson, to create a shift in perspective, and to let go of a belief or expectation.
Gratitude makes it much more acceptable, gives it meaning, and promotes healing.
I have a friend who is a highly evolved spiritual person with the capacity to practice believing that ‘it’s all good;’ and that everything that happens is supposed to be happening. She doesn’t fight against the current nor try to change the outcome. Instead, she accepts the flow, the timing, and how things unfold, especially when it’s not what she expected. I admire this attitude and remind myself of it often.
I also remind myself of the importance of ‘raising my vibrational frequency.’ We attract situations and people who vibrate at a similar frequency. I don’t want to be stuck in negativity, fear and anxiety, or anger and resentment! I intentionally choose to shift my perspective and flow Gratitude.
After all, as Brene Brown teaches, “There is no joy without gratitude.”
I’ll leave you with this quote by Brian Tracy: “Develop an attitude of Gratitude and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”
