Gratitude

Gratitude is a major part of ‘The Secret.’  The basic concept is that by being aware of what we are thankful for, more wonderful things will come into our lives.  To be aware of what we are thankful for though, is the hard part.

A dear friend of mine gave me ‘The Secret Gratitude Journal’ for a Christmas gift.  Talk about the universe giving you exactly what you need at exactly the right time.  I asked the universe for this gift, and it gave it to me through this friend.  I didn’t put my wish into words, but I did think about how I had to make daily gratitude a part of my life.  Also, I needed this to be a part of my life, and the universe gave me what I needed, and a time when I needed it.  This is an example of how there really are no coincidences.

I have been using the journal for the last 2 weeks.  Each day, I am supposed to open the journal, sit down, clear my head and say the words ‘Thank you’ 20 times.  The most effective way to do it is to try to say thank you from your heart.  I sit in quiet and I imagine my heart shouting out to the universe.  It really is quite powerful.  On one page I am supposed to write everything I am thankful for today.  On the opposite page, I am supposed to write everything I am thankful for in the future.  The catch is, that I have to write it as though I already have it.  It is really weird when you first try to do it.  I mean, saying “Thank you for the beautiful 2 storey house with wrap around porch with the 2 acres of privacy” seems really weird when you are living in a bungalow on a postage stamp sized city lot.  But once you get the hang of it, it is pretty easy.

I’m amazed at what I am thankful for, and how writing them down makes me so much more aware of the many blessings in my life.  Something as simple as the baby taking an extra long nap, or one of my dogs snuggling up beside me when I’m in a bad mood.  It really is profound.

 I am in the middle of another book right now entitled “What Happy Women Know” by Dan Baker.  This was also a gift from a great friend.  It is an excellent book.  I am learning so much from it.  In it, Baker (a Psychologist) talks about so many women who have passed through his practice over the years.  They all have the same issue- they want what every other woman around them has- none of them are happy with what they have.  He comments that true happiness comes from loving what you have, not wanting what you don’t have.  Actually, it reminds me of a famous quote “Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.”  This is it!  Exactly it!  I find myself often thinking about what others have, and about wanting more.  I forget sometimes that I need to stop and appreciate all of the many blessings in my life.  Baker talks a lot about how so many women spend so much time agonizing over what they don’t have.  For example, say a woman wants a bigger house.  Well, when she ends up getting the bigger house, she still isn’t happy, because there is someone else with a bigger house, or she finds something new to obsess over.

This is going to take some time for me to work on, but I know gratitude is the place to start.