Gratitude is a SuperPower
Practicing Gratitude daily helps us change our perspective and outlook on life. It brings with it hope, goodness, love, and possibility. It can increase our self esteem and improve our well being. It can open our hearts and transform our experience of our lives.
Here’s how to start…
Cultivating Gratitude starts with the practice of saying Thank You. Thank You is a simple prayer, so simple it’s just two words. But these 2 words can transform your life.
Start with saying Thank You for anything.
Right now - say thank you for breathing, for being alive, for the bed you sleep on, for the house you live in. Say thank you for running water, hot water, a toilet that flushes. Say thank you that you can move your toes, that you have toes, or whatever else is working in your body and in your life.
Gratitude is powerful because it forces us to look at what is working in our lives.
It makes us take our focus OFF of what is constantly not working for us. It interrupts the habitual way we humans have of focusing on what’s not working, what’s wrong, what needs fixing, what could be better. When we constantly look at our lives this way we are viewing through the lens of scarcity, of not enoughness. Gratitude practice makes us focus our attention on what and how anything is working for us.
Become a Gratitude Ninja
Now that you have a basic practice of gratitude down we move into an advanced Gratitude practice, what I call Deep Gratitude.
Be grateful for all the difficult things, hardships, challenges, and obstacles in your life.
“What?! No way! Why would I want to do that?” you might ask…
When we can become grateful for our difficulties, hardships, challenges, even traumas that we have experienced, we set ourselves free. It’s not that we asked or ask for these difficult situations to happen to us - but they already have. So now we work with them. We mine them for gold.
The difficulties in my relationship with my father taught me about forgiveness, and the strength of love. My father left our family when I was a teenager. It’s not like I wanted the difficulties, the hurt and pain. But I learned and grew as a result of those lessons and for that I am immensely grateful. Today I am accepting of that experience and grateful I have learned to grow and thrive despite difficult circumstances. I learned so much about myself and life through that experience. It’s brought me into deeper acceptance of myself and my flaws, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. It taught me about how I want to be treated and how to treat others. And it taught me to let go of being a victim and learn that I was responsible for creating happiness in my life. This was the alchemical spiritual process I experienced of turning gunk into gold - of turning anger, bitterness, hurt, pain, and despair into love, forgiveness, acceptance, and gratitude.
What are some difficulties in your life that you can be grateful for? What lessons have those difficulties brought you that have enriched your life?
Being a Gratitude Ninja means that we mine our difficult situations for the gold that lies within them. We look at the ways we are called to grow and transform as a result of living through our challenges.
When we move into Deep Gratitude and practice being grateful for the totality of our life, Reverence flowers. Reverence for the miracle and precious gift that is our Life. When we experience Reverence we are walking hand in hand with Presence, the Presence that guides our lives, that is the Source of our life. Reverence is a deep honoring for the innate healing and deep wisdom within us that flowers when we bring our attention and awareness to it.