Gratitude, thankfulness, you hear these words all the time. Especially in the healing communities, you come across these terms quite a bit. Many of the rest of us can feel like “what’s the point? What is there to be thankful for?” Sometimes though it may be tough to see all the good that exists in our lives, we focus so much on everything that is wrong that we cannot see what is right.
Several years ago I saw this talk that was given by a preacher on gratitude, or thankfulness. This man spent 10 minutes, everyday focusing on everything he was thankful for. He said that when you spend so much time focused on being thankful for all the good things in your life, “god would give you more” of whatever you were thankful for.
I remember being so inspired by this. I mean, how often do you stop yourself from going over all of your problems, or the problems you have with others, and just be thankful for what you have in your life? I found this process to be so helpful in redirecting my thinking. Just the act of acknowledging the things in my life that I was most appreciative of was affecting my mood, and uplifting my spirits.
I’m not so sure I would go so far as to say that “god was bringing me more” from this practice, but that my awareness was changing it’s focus and my perspective had shifted. Making it a daily practice has allowed that perspective to become a more permanent part of my thinking, and it’s a center of my focus now, to seek the things in my life that bring me the most joy. My ability to focus on the good things in my life, had grown.
Buddhist monks who meditate on gratitude tend to be some of the happiest people living on the planet. You don’t need to spend your entire life devoted to the practice of meditation to get these benefits. Studies have shown that after just one time meditating people experience an increased resilience to neurotic behaviors.
With regular practice we see deeper changes in people’s personalities. We see a decrease in depressive thinking, an increased sense of well-being, a steep decline in suicidal ideation, and an increased capacity for trust. When you consider this information against the vast amount of people who struggle with each of these issues that we know or encounter in our daily lives it becomes obvious that we do not spend as much time experiencing gratitude as we should.
So how does something as simple as being thankful or grateful cause such a dramatic change in people’s happiness? We can take a few different angles here to understand these mechanisms. One thing that can help us to see this is understanding that our thoughts create our emotions. When we can get our mindset in a place where we focus on the things that bring us love, joy or gratitude you will begin to realize the power that the nature of your thinking has over your mood. Understanding this, I have willfully changed a negative thought pattern and replaced it with an uplifting and positive one. With in three minutes of doing this I made myself so happy I literally brought myself to tears. That’s how potent our thoughts are! So what are we creating in ourselves when we are thinking about all the things that make us unhappy?
The next concept comes from Mikau Usui, the man who invented the Reiki method of healing, he says “our cells are always listening to our thoughts.” Let’s suppose for a minute that this is actually true, what are you telling your cells everyday when you are thinking? Are you telling yourself you are fat? Are you telling yourself you are in poor health? Are you telling yourself you don’t deserve to feel good? What is the nature of your thoughts? What are you telling yourself and your cells and how could that be affecting you?
Eileen Day McKusick in her book, “Tuning the Human Biofield” discusses the idea of coherent and incoherent energies. A coherent energy is a series of energy waves that run parallel to one another (in the most simplistic explanation). Coherent frequencies are generated by emotions that generally feel good, emotions like joy, love, compassion, gratitude. Coherent frequencies are generally stronger, more life giving energies that nourish the cells more. Giving them the ability to heal and repair themselves.
Incoherent frequencies come in wave forms that cross one another creating a feeling of heaviness and resistance. Incoherent frequencies are generated by feelings of jealousy, hatred, anxiousness, resentments. These signals are weaker but tend to cause a breakdown in the cellular structure, not only inhibiting cellular repair but in the right intensity, causing damage to the cell structure.
So across these ideas there seems to be one constant, that the state of our mind and our perspective on the world help us to create an emotional ecosystem where we can live and be our best. One of the simplest ways to get to that state of well being is thoughts of conscious gratitude. Not only through focusing on the things that we are grateful and thankful for, but to actually allow yourself the opportunity to feel that gratitude. To experience a feeling of deep reverence for the things in your life that give you life.
The holidays can bring us closer to those who would bring us deeply emotional experiences. As we navigate these moments in our lives, let us remember to be grateful. Yes, the holidays can bring up a lot of old emotions, and old connections, and even old wounds. In these moments, it may be hard for us to find gratitude. Through compassion and forgiveness we can create a pathway to experiencing these human connections in such a way that we may see that they can no longer harm us. Let us have gratitude for the fact that we can choose how we experience and react to these situations, and those new choices could result in new outcomes that create more fulfillment for ourselves and our loved ones.
So remember, we have much to be thankful for. All we need do, is to teach ourselves to recognize it. Wherever we shine the light of our vision, the seeds we plant will grow. What can you do today, to allow yourself to experience more gratitude?
Nightwing Healing Arts 