The Power of Gratitude

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
Meister Eckhart

This past week has presented me with several challenges that led me to question what lesson the universe was attempting to teach me. So, in the face of adversity I asked myself: ‘What’s good about this experience? What can I learn from it? How can I benefit from this?’ Having meditated on these questions for a short time, the answer was clear. The universe was providing me with the opportunity to practice gratitude.

Gratitude is an attitude of spirit; the essence of gratitude lies in the understanding that every moment and everything that shows up in your life is something to be grateful for. So many of us often take things for granted: the air that we breathe, the food that we have, the bed that we sleep in, the people in our lives and just about everything about ourselves. When was the last time that you told someone ‘I am so very fortunate to have you in my life or thought to yourself ‘ I am so blessed and grateful for everything I have in my life, whatever that may be’. If you have clothes on your back, food in your fridge and a roof over your head, you are richer than three quarters of the world’s population. If you wake up in the morning with your health in-tact, you are more blessed than the millions who will not make it through this week because of illness. And if you have someone that cares about you, you have an enormous amount to be grateful for.

When you are grateful for what you have right now, the universe will respond by giving you even more to be grateful for. When you can be happy and grateful for your life today, so many more things will flow into your life. So start to become grateful even through the tough times because they are the ones that help develop your strength and your spirit. When you have the courage to be grateful for what you already have, life will bless you with even more and when you spend a few minutes each day giving thanks to what you have and who you have in your life, you release your inner guide, you release that love that resides inside each and every one of us. Really feel the positive energy of gratitude; it is that feeling that generates more greatness into your life. A practice of gratitude raises your happiness level so you can remain at a higher state of happiness regardless your external circumstances.

So what are you grateful for in your life? I am grateful for so much and today, I am especially grateful for a particular person who has made such a great difference in my life. There’s something so special about being appreciative and grateful. There’s something so authentic and beautiful about moments when you can simply say ‘’thank you’’. Thank you for your support, thank you for this gift, thank you for my home, thank you for my family, thank you for this person in my life, thank you for the abundance that surrounds me, thank you for this day, thank you for my journey, thank you for life and the opportunity to be of service.

So many people go through life without experiencing these magical moments. Life is still an experience, even though you may be faced with difficult challenges, you are still alive! As you read this, people are taking their last breath on this earthly plane, perhaps wishing that they could be here a little while longer. We are still alive, we are still breathing. That in itself is a huge thing to be grateful for. Create moments of gratitude just for the sake of being alive and in so doing you reconnect with yourself and the great universal life force that lives within each of us.

Gratitude has its own vibrational frequency that draws energy to you and the more you experience feelings of appreciation and thanks, the more you allow this energy to be drawn to you; being grateful changes your entire reality and in so doing changes the way you experience life.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a great way to get you into the habit of practising gratitude on a daily basis. Each night, just before you go to sleep, spend 5 minutes writing down everything you are grateful for; once you start acknowledging all that you have in your life and bring gratitude even to negative situations, you start to treasure your own divinity.