Thankfulness in every day is the key to loving life.
~Hilarion
This week Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Our time-honored tradition is to spend a day feasting with family. We get together and celebrate gratitude for our loved ones and the many gifts in our lives. Wherever we are in the world, it is a lovely idea to devote a day to consciously enjoying our numerous blessings.
Intentional focus on what and whom we love and appreciate makes us feel good. It puts a warm fuzzy wrapper on our experiences, because our body follows our emotional lead by producing endorphins in response to our grateful thoughts. We feel happier and healthier when we’re thankful, and devoting a day to gratitude is a wonderful spiritual, emotional, and physical boost.
Unfortunately, we often forget this habit in our everyday lives. Most days it is easy to come up with a list of what we don’t like and a bit harder to come up with a list of the people and things we appreciate. We simply forget the power of gratitude.
Practicing gratitude many times every day is transformative. It lifts us out of third-dimensional separation consciousness—fear, anger, resentment, disillusionment, and disappointment—and propels us into connection consciousness—trust, acceptance, appreciation, wonder, and thankfulness. Regular gratitude shifts the nature of our existence, because by being thankful we have chosen to alter our way of perceiving life.
The easiest way to make ourselves and those around us happy is by being thankful habitually and frequently. The gratitude groove is catching. When we are gracious and grateful the good feelings transfer to others, inspiring them to be thankful too. A gratitude revolution is possible, one that can transform the world, if we all simply focus regularly on appreciating our lives.
Let’s spend a few moments right now upping our gratitude quotient. We’ll start by slowing our breath and letting it become slow, regular, and even. As we do so, we’ll picture our connection to the divine and all of creation—our sharing within—as a globe of golden light in the center of our heart region.
Inhaling, the light strengthens and brightens. Exhaling, the light pours out through our bodies and into our surroundings. We’ll breathe slowly and picture the golden light pulsing through and around us until we feel calm, focused, and peaceful, signally conscious connection with our sharing within.
Now we’ll begin to make a mental list of all the things we’re grateful for right now. Family, friends, food, shelter, good health, abundance—these are a few items that might begin our list. We’ll continue on to list the particulars of the moment. Comfortable clothing, a full stomach, pleasant surroundings, the ability to breathe and digest food without conscious thought, the ability to move at will—these are a few more wonderful things we might detail.
We will encode our gratitude on our breath and send it out into the world with every inhalation and exhalation, borne on the golden light from our heart. For just a few moments, we will think of nothing but gratitude and love of life.
Now we will check in and compare our mental and emotional state, before and after this exercise. Doesn’t it feel marvelous to be thankful? Doesn’t it make every single being and thing seem more precious? This gratitude high is possible at any time in life; we simply have to choose to focus on appreciation and love. Thankfulness creates beauty.
Divinely unique and beautiful reader, I’m immensely grateful for your presence in my life. Thank you for sharing this wonderful and surprising journey with me!