Spiritual and Human Gratitude: They Are Not the Same
By Cori Savenelli
It is widely accepted by believers in the Law of Attraction’s principles that the key emotional element toward attaining your desires is the presence of gratitude in your life.
So what is it about this experience that so drastically alters the energy field and kick starts your cosmic earning potential? What IS gratitude? Well, to begin with, let us remember that there is an entire holiday on our calendar year dedicated to it! It’s a day of celebration, of the recognition that what we have is a gift, but who are we thanking?
Most cultures have a ritual, ceremony or day to celebrate with gratitude and we’re all thanking someone or something different. Religious individuals will thank their deities, be they spiritual in nature or nature itself. Non-religious people will thank each other, their families and supporters, or even themselves, being proud in their own accomplishments and those of others. Many people begin their day with an affirmation of gratitude insisting that it jump-starts their smile for the day’s events. Others thank their universe and/or their Higher Power every night before they go to bed and as long as life remains level, this emotional state remains relatively constant and beneficial. Then inevitably, something will happen in their daily life that challenges their positive nature, and often it doesn’t take much disturbance. Low and behold, we begin to feel angry, resentful toward the universe or our God or Higher Power, foolish for entertaining such ridiculous and pointless affirmations.
What we fail to understand is that being in a state of gratitude, and love and peace and happiness, for that matter, is not contingent upon our conditions. When we talk about being grateful we are not speaking of being so because of the hot car we drive, or the wonderful partner we have, or all the money we make or our beautiful children. We are grateful to be ALIVE. We are grateful for the opportunity to experience this existence and to learn all we can and share all we have with humility and and a sense of adventure! We are grateful for those trying times because they are PART of our existence and can and often do result in an increased understanding of who we are and how we affect others.
So what IS gratitude? Gratitude is state of being. It is not a bargaining chip, or a brick of cheese to be dangled in front of the mouse’s nose. We are not grateful so that we may attain, we are GRATEFUL because we have. So the next time you are struggling to find something in your weary day to be grateful for, when the house is a mess and you’ve fought with your partner and your kid is in trouble at school, and you are tired and scared, lonely or feeling unloved, just look up to the sky, look toward your strength, inhale deeply, exhale slowly, and repeat after me…”Thank you for this breath”.
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