The Practice of Gratitude

Gratitude has everything to do with a personal energetic coherence that greatly influences the health of not only our body, but our mind and spirit. Our feeling center fuels our well-being as a component of our overall health. The feeling of infinite love and gratitude are therefore integral to our transformation, be it our physical health or our healing process in general. 

Gratitude can be the missing link when it comes to transformation. We can work hard to take care of ourselves, meditate daily, eat the right things, be kind to others, but without gratitude, we keep ourselves limited.

So what is it about gratitude that is so important?

Gratitude changes our alchemy if it is a practice. When we are always focused on what is lacking, we give energy to that lack. Regularly giving thanks for what already is fulfills our sense of wholeness. It feeds the energy of what is working. If we want something to change, we must objectively see and accept those things…and then find what we can be grateful for.

We can also hold a vision as if it has already happened, and give thanks. This doesn’t mean pretending or giving lip service. It doesn’t mean by-passing fear or overriding our negative emotions and false beliefs. It doesn’t mean replacing positive thinking for negative thinking.

If we can deeply feel gratitude for something whether it has happened or not, we change the molecular structure of our cells.

Gratitude has been a big part of my lifelong spiritual transformation as well as my current healing journey.

I grew up in a family where the general outlook was usually pessimistic with default to worst-case scenarios.  There was lots of drama about what might happen…as if it were already happening. We were taught to live in fear.

This is how I was “conditioned” and it has taken a lifetime of inner work to emerge from this toxic way of looking at any given situation. If I’m not careful, I catch myself almost going there.

My spiritual practice and the discipline of meditation helped me wiggle out, but it was the self-observation of this phenomenon and the gratitude that set me free. Nothing can be seen and assimilated unless the light shines upon it, and this means a particular kind of light… the light of presence. This was the only way I could see just how bad it was; otherwise, the negativity was simply the air I breathed most of the time.

Gratitude then became the antidote. It was my medicine and I can say with the utmost certainty that it still is today.

Objectively seeing my fear and how paralyzing it was allowed me to take action despite its presence. Having gratitude for this new ability strengthened my resolve. I naturally felt relief, hope, and thankfulness for the very small steps. It helped me speak my truth, step out on stage to play the piano, and most of all, to keep going in the face of obstacles.

I knew gratitude played a big part because it came from the depths within me with lots of tears; sometimes tears I could not put into words. It moved something akin to genuine hope in my heart, making room and safety for more feeling. The more I felt the more gratitude I had.

I have found that most of us, myself included, have shut away lots of feelings. When this tenderness ignites in my students, I know the feeling center is coming online. That center, primarily dormant in so many of us due to upbringing and socialization, is critical to our becoming whole. Gratitude naturally awakens once this happens.

When we are in crisis or have depression, for example, we have to find gratitude in the very small things.

Sometimes we have to fake it to make it and so a daily gratitude practice can help instill a new attitude. If we are full of self-pity or grief, finding even the smallest things to be thankful for can start to change the tide.

Having gratitude for something as if it has already happened is a more advanced technique that requires strengthened attention, consistent and repeated visualization accompanied by what that would feel like, and true resolve. 

For example, my restored health is a known fact in my Being. It exists beyond my mere thoughts or hopes. I feel it as reality each day as if it has already happened. I do not let symptoms, skeptics or setbacks shirk my belief. I feel deep gratitude for this reality with every action I can accomplish from putting on a jacket to writing this blog. Each night before I go to sleep, I see myself in the future doing all the things I love …and it feels real.

I do not entertain the fear of what might happen, and believe me when I say, I did a lot of that upon receiving my diagnosis of PD. I had to come to acceptance, take specific and concrete action, trust in a higher power, and feel gratitude in order for this whole healing thing to kick into gear. 

Now it’s stepping into my created reality one thank you at a time.