Gratefulness  The simple Spiritual Practice   that enhances   every area of life

Gratefulness - The Gateway to Joy

We were created to be Joyous beings by a loving, benevolent Spirit.  But Joy is not something that we can create on our own.  Joy – like Love and Peace – are gifts that come straight from God.  The best that we can do to bring Joy into our life experience is to prepare our consciousness to receive it.

A Grateful Heart Nurtures A Healthy Body

Recent psychological studies on the effects of gratefulness on patients who have had surgeries show that those who were grateful - grateful to be alive, grateful for the wonder of modern medicine, grateful for each new day – healed faster and were able to resume their normal activities much more quickly than those who did not feel grateful about their life circumstances.  The cells of their bodies actively responded to their grateful thoughts and words and made them well again.

A Grateful Mind Draws to It All That Is Good

  

Gratefulness is also a catalyst for drawing whatever you call “good” - directly to you.  Using the Principle of the Law of Mind Action, it makes ultimate sense that those who focus on what is already good in their lives, draw more good to them all of the time.  The thoughts we hold in our mind out picture in our life experience.  Holding thoughts of what you are grateful to have already received, draws more things like that to you. It cannot fail. It is a Universal Law.

A Grateful Consciousness Creates Warm Relationships

Kindness is a by-product of gratefulness.  Filled with their own senses of well being, grateful people feel free to give without any reservation.  Who do you know who doesn’t enjoy being around someone who is basically kind, caring and compassionate?  It simply follows that grateful people experience happy relationships because their positive influence on those around them is so strong.

Learn to Express Your Gratefulness and Prepare Yourself for Joy   Below are listed five gratefulness exercises.  It is important for you to do each one every day until you begin to feel naturally grateful all of the time.  You’ll know when you reach that naturally grateful state of mind because – you will  automatically recognize the blessing in every event that happens in your life experience.   1)     Before you get out of bed in the morning – reach out for feelings of gratefulness and express them out loud.  Allow your natural gratitude to well up as you feel grateful for a fresh new day of life in front of you; for a good night’s sleep behind you; for a safe place to sleep each night; for the people who will support you this day; for all of your five senses; for the money you have in your bank account; for the creditors that trust you.  Each morning – reach for the thought of something new that is part of the makeup of your life, for which you are truly and naturally grateful.  Acknowledge the activity of Spirit in your Life by expressing your Gratefulness eagerly.   2)     Say grace before every meal.  Acknowledge to God, your gratefulness for the food you are about to eat (even snacks).  Allow yourself to feel gratefulness for your healthy body temple and the opportunity to feed it generously.  Express your gratefulness for all of the people who grew the food you are about to eat and processed it and transported it and sold it and prepared it.  And finally, express your gratefulness to the animal, if one is involved, that gave its life to sustain and nourish yours.   3)     Perform at least three kind acts every day for others.  The acts you choose may be large acts of kindness that really take time and money to accomplish – like driving someone to an appointment or helping someone financially.  Or then may be small, simple acts of kindness, like picking up a piece of trash off the street, that takes seconds and costs nothing.   If you allow yourself to be open, Spirit will lead you directly to each act of kindness and you will know instinctively that you are called to do it.  God does not have arms and legs on this plane of existence, so sometimes God asks us, when we are Awake, to perform Divine Kindnesses instead.   4)     Perform at least one kind act for yourself.  Taking care of yourself, body, mind and Spirit is an act of gratefulness.  Your care of yourself acknowledges your gratefulness to God for creating you.  When you feed your body well – nourish it, cleanse it, heal it – you are making a statement of gratefulness.  When you cleanse your mind of negative thoughts and focus on what is good in your life – you are making a statement of gratefulness.  When you lift up your energy level from low to high you are acknowledging your own perfection and that is an act of gratefulness.  When you take time to pray and to listen to the words your Soul is speaking to you - you are expressing gratefulness.  Allow yourself the gift of time needed for your own self-care.  It is an important part of your gratefulness process.   5)     Start a Gratefulness Journal and write in it every night, just before you go to sleep.   Use any sort of notebook that appeals to you – or your computer - to list a minimum of five things for which you are grateful that very day.  List new things, new experiences, new people who come into your life and bring your good to you.  Your Gratefulness Journal list for one day might read something like this.  I got a really good break this morning – traffic was light and I had time for a cup of coffee before I started work.  My boss really liked the report I did last week and he said so in front of everyone at the staff meeting.  I went with Joe to a new restaurant for lunch and the food was delicious, +Joe paid for lunch!  I stopped off at the Doctor’s office after work so that he could look at my shoulder and he says it is almost healed.  I don’t have to go back to him any more.   There was a rebate check in the mailbox for $56 – I had forgotten that I even sent that paperwork in.  I had an e-mail from Jim tonight telling me that Eric is preparing to be an Eagle Scout.  Thank you God for my son, my grandson and for e-mail! I Am Joyful and I Am Grateful – Thank you God!   At the end of the week, reread your entries carefully and give thanks for the 35 (or more) little blessings that have come into your life in just one week.  For an even greater cumulative effect – reread your entries every month and again at the end of the year.  Five expressions of gratefulness a day adds up to 1825 little blessings a year.  It is very impressive evidence that God Loves you all of the time.   Bonus Activity– for a Bonus Expression of Gratefulness, we suggest that as you close your Gratefulness Journal and prepare to go to sleep each night, that you give thanks for a solid, peaceful night of sleep ahead of you and for the opportunity to awake in the morning rested and ready for the next great day in your life.

Small Investment – Large Return

All together these five Gratefulness exercises will take you less than an hour to accomplish on most days – and you will begin to see  positive results at once.  By focusing, at least five times a day, on the blessings in your life, you continue to cultivate the soil of your consciousness and keep it ready to receive a steady flow of Joy.

To discover an exciting new way to bring Gratefulness into your life all day every day - Click Here

To order our 2CD set - Gratefulness the Wonder Tool - Click Here

To participate in UnityNow's other three Belief Changing Exercises
 Click Here