Habit of Gratitude: Gentle Visibility Blogfest, Day One

This post was originally published on the Seraph’s Quill.

Happy Tuesday to you!

With the holiday weekend, here in the States, over, it’s time to get back to the “normal” schedule.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m participating in the Gentle Visibility Blogfest this week, and our “directive” is to publish a post today. Unfortunately, my brain has decided that it’s still on holiday. So, this may be a mish-mash of “nonsense”, but even nonsense plays a part in the world, right?

This morning, I popped into my email account to discover that Dr. Perry from Make It Ultra liked one of my posts. (Thank you, Dr. Perry!) So, I popped over to his blog and read a couple of his posts and returned the favor of the like. My favorite was Is Gratitude Overrated?

I’ve found what he says to be true. “Gratitude” is a very popular buzzword these days. One that seems to be on the lips of every person we know, and I guess to some it could be considered “cliche”. Quite honestly, though, the act of conscious gratitude has had an enormous impact on my own life.

It is said that we energetically attract those things to us that resonate (meaning “match”) with our own energetic vibration…* We actually create our lives with our own thoughts and emotions. So, if we’re always focusing on what is missing in our lives, we will create more of the same.

By the same token, though, if we express gratitude – thus connecting emotion with the thought – for the things (ie situations, objects, people) that are good in our lives, we will create more of the same.

So, if that is the case… And I can tell you from experience that it is… I would much prefer to expend the same amount of energy and create more of what I desire to be true about my life than not.

When I was first introduced to this concept – conscious gratitude – I was pretty unhappy with life. I was unhappy and had no idea what I could do to change it, what would actually make me happy. I only knew that I wasn’t.

That was approximately 6 years ago, and now? Life has seemingly done a 180.

I can safely say that I’m happier with it (and me) than I have ever been.

But it didn’t happen overnight, and it took a whole heck of a lot of internal work.

This journey I’ve realized is not about anyone else. It’s about our personal relationship with Life, itself, and if we cannot first identify what is good about life and be grateful for it, then we are never going to create and live the life “of our dreams”.

Now, I fully admit that there were days in the beginning when it was a struggle to find something to be grateful for, let alone the five points my spiritual life coach asked me to write down in my journal each day. Some days, breathing and waking up that morning were the only points I could list.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. It wasn’t because those were the only good things that were occurring in my life. It was because, at that time, I wasn’t in the habit of seeing much more than that.

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it?

On this path, we learn about our established habits. The ones that aren’t in our best interest. The ones that we have learned from those who raised us or even – sometimes – society itself. Then, we learn better habits to replace them with. Over time, of course.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ~ Epicurus

I will also say that conscious gratitude (along with all my other spiritual practices) is like a muscle. When strong, it helps support my life and keep it and me at a high energetic level. When not used, though, it will become flabby, and that is usually when life tends to get a bit “bumpy”.

It’s then that I look at what I’m doing and not doing, and, more times than not, I’ll realize that I’ve fallen behind on one or more practices.

So, what role does gratitude play in your life? What five things are you grateful for at the moment? I would love for you to share in the comments below!

May you walk in love and light today and all your days to come.

~D

Today, I’m partying with the wonderful folks in Astra’s Prosperous Messenger Tribe on Facebook. #GentleVisibilityBlogfest – Day One

*It is scientifically proven. I won’t get into the science here, myself, but if you are interested in learning more about the concept, I invite you to explore the work of Gregg Braden. I really like how he shares spiritual concepts as well as the science behind them. He has a series on Gaia called Missing Links that I highly recommend.