“For it is in the giving that we receive.” — St. Francis of Assisi
We often hear it said that we should be grateful for the things that come into our lives. That an attitude of gratitude can move mountains and that it is important to thank the Universe for our daily bread, our clothes, our health and the other fine things that we are blessed with. Mostly we say the words in rote memorization for those things that we know we should remember to say thank you for and that is a good thing. As the old Jewish proverb says, “when we smile the heart follows.” We say these prayerful meditations learned by heart to praise the Universe and all that is brought forth so willingly.
We believe that it is our job to send this gratitude to the Universe, and in return the Universe will provide. That is the Law of Attraction and the Secret of living. What we send out we get back. This may lead us to think that the Universe needs our praise and gratitude, and this is a fair barter for all the riches provided, but this is not the case. The truth is that we need our gratitude. It is for ourselves that we need to give thanks, for our own sake. This has nothing to do with how the Universe operates.
The magic of the Universe operates with or without our appreciation. Our love and thankfulness is not needed by the vast, omnipotent, intelligent energy structure that has created and runs this Magnificence that we live within. We alone need gratitude for our own sakes and our own personal growth potential. We need to feel grateful and appreciate life so that we can benefit, and progress emotionally. So, if what we send out is what we get back, and gratitude is a part of it, then we get that energy of appreciation back to us. How does that work and why?
We are made of energy and so are all living things. Energy is increased and decreased within us as we take part in living life. As people and things come into our lives, they give us energy and we give them energy. Like a bank account that increases and decreases based on deposits and withdrawals, the account that is named for us expands and contracts. Emotions are the currency that we bank roll for health and wellness. As we move through life we use them to assess ourselves like a thermometer that measures our internal temperature. Emotions remind us how we are doing, that is, if we are honestly reading our temperature.
The more we are cut off from our inner life, the less able we are to access that part of us. We cover over feelings with food, drugs, alcohol, play and work until we don’t know how we feel. Then something creeps up on us to let us know that we are in trouble. We get more and more negative emotions seeping into our lives in the form of depression, anxiety and sadness. Or perhaps a sense of dis-ease creeps in that turns into disease. There are only two main emotions, fear-based and pleasure-based emotions. We have a choice of living a love-based life or living a fear-based life.
Many feelings encompass these two main areas. The first is anything that brings pleasure: peace, joy, acceptance, and those things that feel good. Then there is anything that brings pain: sadness, disgust, anger and fear. It is up to us to look for those things that fill us up and reduce or eliminate those things that deplete our reserves. Pleasurable things, for the most part fill us up, while painful and fear-based things deplete the system.
We get up in the morning and if we have had a decent night’s sleep we basically feel like all is well. We start every day with a clean sheet of paper in our ledger of life. Think of the self as this clean sheet of paper for a moment. We are moving through our morning and something simple happens. A car swerves around us and scares the life out of us. In this simple act, our day takes a turn. We can say to ourselves, “I guess he didn’t see me, I am truly blessed to have missed this accident waiting to happen. I was scared, but I’m safe now.” Or we can say to ourselves, “that crazy son a gun tried to kill me.” In the first scenario we break even and in the latter, we make a big withdrawal from the ledger of our day. This continues, because we know once we get started, the energy smolders within us and eventually drains away. We continue to find fault with our day and the very act of living. We attract more of what we don’t want.
The more we ignore and pile up negativity in our system, the more we stockpile tension and dis-ease. This can be for many reasons, mostly because we were taught that we shouldn’t feel bad about things that happen. We were taught to be nice and not make waves. No one taught us how to experience our feelings, let them go and then assertively make what isn’t working right. We cover feelings with a great many things to make ourselves feel good, even work.
Turning addictive processes into a positive addiction helps, but no cigar here, because we tend to overdue that too. So if it is socially acceptable to work hard, we work too much. If it is socially acceptable and good for the body to be a runner, we run on sprained ankles, in the rain and with the flu. Balance isn’t there because we have shut down our internal guide, the feeling that let us know what our temperature is registering and that we are in trouble.
Which would you have in your life? My guess would be pleasurable things and an increase of energy and vitality. So what does it for you? What makes you feel good? How is it when you do feel good? Energy flows and life feels great. We are positive, and truly living an attitude of gratitude. The living seems easy. This flow creates a world where everything moves easily and effortlessly. We are moved by the beauty of every living thing. The colors around us are mesmerizing and beautiful. Our step is light and we know we can do anything. We feel good and we look our best. Life is the way we want it to be. This is when appreciation for all things are ours. Our ledger of life is in the black and growing and we want it always to remain so.
This is the work of the Universe, to help us to see that we can experience life in this way all of the time. This is possible when we work towards finding balance in our emotional life, which creates an effortless world of synchronicity, beauty and pleasure. Come with us to this world of luminous beauty, abundance and joy. Grow your energy in the ledger of life, and with gratitude, invest in our Divine Self. If not now when?
[tags]Shirley Ryan, Working Together articles, personal energy and growth, health and wellness, life coach[/tags]
