What is gratitude? It is a state of being, a presence of grace that flows around us and through us. With gratitude, every ounce of our being is focused on all that is right, all that is good, the abundance and prosperity that fills all areas of our lives.
Sounds like fairies and pixies and dancing through fields? A more practical and probably relevant question us readers are probably wanting to cut to the chase on is: how does one focus on being grateful when it seems like there are so many challenges everywhere we look? How and why should we focus on being grateful when our friends or maybe even we ourselves are facing layoffs, there are all sorts of economic uncertainties going on, homes are being lost, or we might just be more wound up and snappy toward the ones we love without meaning to be, simply because of the mounting pressures we're facing and feeling?
It's easy to be grateful when things are going well. The sign of spiritual maturity and growth is when we can be grateful even when our surroundings test us. Not everyone may be on a conscious path to soul evolution or mastery, however, all beings can benefit from a little grace and gratitude in their lives. What makes gratitude so important?
Gratitude is all about attitude (seriously, we're not just trying to be clever with words here). Gratitude is a choice to create a positive, upward trend or momentum of energy that directs where your life—and everything in it—heads. Do you want to focus all your energy on that which you actually do have (no matter how small it is, we still have something we can be grateful for) or do you want to focus all your energy and attention on everything that is wrong and that you don't have?
Similar energies attract; opposite energies repel. We've seen this discussed and represented through numerous mainstream vehicles—e.g., the popular online movie “The Secret”, best-selling books like “The Law of Attraction”. More and more people are discovering every day that which GrandMaster Choa Kok Sui has been teaching through Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga: “that which you focus your attention on will tend to appear.”
So, gratitude is about making a conscious decision about how you want to live your life and then directing your energy toward the end result, thereby manifesting and materializing better, easier lives for ourselves.
We know all the “pros” for living a life filled with gratitude: you start to feel better, you have a more positive attitude and outlook, you tend to be more open and willing to try new solutions and ideas for those areas where there are “gaps” waiting to be filled with abundance. There's not a whole lot to lose on the “pros” side of the list.
What about the “cons”? What if you were to surrender to gratitude? Some think that you aren't being realistic if you fail to focus on the issues/problems at hand. Some people feel that you have to worry about what's going on, you need to anticipate the bad that could happen so you'll be ready for it when it does happen. There absolutely is a place in every person's life for planning. Here's the secret: gratitude and planning CAN go hand-in-hand. There is no reason to keep an eye on your financial investments with a sense of regularity and to balance and re-balance your portfolio to adjust to market conditions. Just be grateful that you have some money to even invest or to worry about even losing. You can save money, keep your resume updated, and make sure you're networking regularly with contacts in your industry in case layoffs do hit your company. But in the meantime, be grateful that you have a job to go to, no matter how not-fun the company's environment is, and be grateful that you have enough skills and talents to put on a resume, or that you're even healthy enough to get out of bed, shower and change yourself without assistance. We guarantee you: you can always find something to be grateful about, even if it's just the breath of air you inhaled. It's all about choice.
It's a natural tendency to worry, especially in times of uncertainty. And, if you are okay with the role that worry plays in your life, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Let us ask you, though: does focusing on what could go wrong control it from not happening? Let us phrase it another way: if worrying actually made a difference in the outcome, wouldn't the worriers have less challenges in their lives and the happy-go-lucky non-worries have more challenges? Wouldn't you be able to brag, “I am such a fantastic worrier that I have a wonderful, blissful life because I've worried all bad things out of existence?”
Again, we're not advocating irresponsibility or lack of planning. However, once you've done everything within your power to cover all your bases and account for that which you can, it's the surrender to allowing gratitude into your life that takes you the rest of the way home to a place of comfort, to an easier, more joyful life.
Pranic Healing Northern California, in affiliation with U.S. Pranic Healing Center | pranichealing.ncalif@gmail.com
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