I encourage you to feel grateful about anything and everything – both the good and what you judge as the bad. Well Bob, that’s weird. Why would I ever want to be grateful for the sadness and disappointment?
Yes, you agree that it’s easy to feel good about positive things that help you or mark your success or progress, but not about the detours, mistakes, failure, or injustices you encounter.
If you’re stuck in some area of your life, you may be denying that abundance is your birthright. You are paying attention to scarcity, fear, and using judgment to keep you stuck. Once you change your perspective, you will allow different energy flows to work for you. If you are apt to feeling fear, angst, frustration, anger or the like, it may be time for you to try a new tact.
If you step on a tack, taking a bunch of aspirin won’t remove the pain – you have to remove the tack. The same applies elsewhere in our lives. Look around, however, and you will observe people feeding their pain with materialism, consumption, and all sorts of distractions in the hope that it will divert their attention from their pain, but it never does. Instead, we have to change our interpretation of our experience – our pain. In life, it’s not what happens to you; rather it’s your interpretation of it. You have to change your perspective, if you want new and better results.
That may all sound weird, but it’s true.
Think back on some of the nasty unpleasant points of your life. Some of them may have led you to new growth or things even better than you may have imagined. Don’t look for everything wrong or that must be fixed, but rather to consciously choose a life of abundance by focusing on the gratitude, blessings, purpose, and joy associated with them. Focus upon what you want more of and not what you want less of. Trust me, it works.
Won’t that mean that if I give praise for a parking ticket, I’m inviting more parking tickets into my life? No, what you are actually inviting is for the Universe to provide you with more items of abundance for you truly feel good about and are ready to receive. The old adage that “you must be in alignment to receive” rings true. Angry, fearful folks don’t typically attract many joyful occurrences into their lives. If you are visiting these non-operating emotions, maybe it’s time for a change.
Relax into a state of positive expectation rather than trying to fix all your “stuff.” Don’t obsess about clearing out all your negativity. Running away from something, life will throw you something equally as testing as where you’ve been until you completely change your perspective from drudgery and frustration to one of joy and abundance. By continually looking for and expressing gratitude, you are moving into a state of openness acceptance, and allowing. The old saying that what you resist persists applies. In changing your old habitual responses, lighten up, be patient, and forgiving of yourself, but begin with baby steps. Find something as perverse as it may appear to find gratitude about.
Have you lost a relationship through death, divorce, separation, or some form of disagreement? Allow yourself to appreciate the time spent together and the joy and growth you had. Realize that relationships are never truly lost for you will always be connected in some form. Rather be grateful for the sadness for it shows that you are open and loving and as a human you are connected and always will be connected to that person. An open heart attracts abundance, love, and joy.
Let go of having your needs fixed. Your angst blocks what you are trying to gain. Instead, redirect your attention to other possibilities that can bring you abundance. Your energy field will shift and you will remove your blockages. Open yourself up to something better by becoming a different person. You may be surprised by what will happen.
Stuck in anger or grief? Blaming someone else or playing the victim won’t work for you and will keep you stuck? Anger and grief are really powerful emotions with a lot of energy. You may want to find a safe place to allow them to come out – they don’t go away as they have to go somewhere and turn inward causing you health problems. Put your head in a pillow and scream. Exercise. Find your way into forgiveness. If necessary find a trusted practitioner who can help you, but don’t suppress your emotions.
Rest and allow, and just be in a state of beautiful expectancy of what’s possible. Be patient with yourself. See through eyes of abundance and abundance will come to and though you. Don’t blindly buy into other’s viewpoints. You are a genius at this when you relax, detach, and awaken to your own power.
Yes, applying gratitude everywhere will be strange at the beginning, but it will become second nature for it is the essence of our highest or best selves. When you look for and practice a state of constant gratitude, you open up all kinds of exciting energy. As you raise the level of energy in and around you, the laws of physics and biology will attract you to that which feels good. And remember, abundance flows where the love grows.
When in doubt, go with gratitude!
