G for Gratitude. The A to Z of Conscious Living

Gratitude

When you want to shift your state to a more positive one, gratitude is the best state shifter I know.

When I am having those days with my mind firmly stuck in the pits and I can’t seem to easily ‘choose’ a better state, feeling thankful for all around me always makes a shift.

When I am grateful for my current situation, whatever that might be, it always lifts me, and there is always something to be grateful for in every situation, always.

Richard Wilkins, from the Ministry of Inspiration, talks about his visits to the local hospice and how he often finds the people there more happy than those in the checkout queue at the supermarket. When we get to an acceptance of where we are on life’s journey we don’t need to fight it. When we learn to live in the moment and just allow ourselves to ‘be’ with no judgement from the past or fear of the future, we can begin to truly accept ourselves and our situation in the present and be peaceful and happy. In blog B for Being we saw that living consciously in the ‘now’ is all we really need to appreciate – a gift that’s called the present.

Another great example from Richard about gratitude is his description of his morning exercise routine. He explains that when we wakes up, often even before he has opened his eyes, he pulls his arms up in front of him with elbows to the sides. He pushes his elbows out to each side pulling his arms away from each other, a couple of times. He then says that if he can’t feel a box then it is a great day.

No matter what is going on for us in any particular day, what challenges we have, what things we have to face, we can be grateful for being alive, and for having the opportunity to live another day. Even if the day we are having is shit, we can still be awesome because we are not our day. We are not the weather, we are not the economic situation, we are not any of the things we are told are not great, so we can consciously separate ourselves from these things and choose to feel grateful anyway.

Every day at home I am reminded of the challenges my son has, and we as a family have, living with Autism and other associated conditions that affect us all. Yet even on the darkest of days I can take moments out to be awake, raise my consciousness and choose to feel grateful for the safety of our home, the food we have in the fridge, the connection I can make with friends if I want to, and when I literally count our blessings the challenges ease a little.

A dear friend gave me a ‘gratitude book’ a few years back now and although I don’t write in it daily, I do pick it up to write and review past comments on a regular basis. The idea of a gratitude book is to write on the left hand page the things you are grateful for right now, and then on the right hand page to write, in the present tense, the things you are grateful for in the future. When I do have a look back on the things I have written I am always amazed at the ‘future’ things and how they have come into existence.

Have a think about what are you grateful for right now. Does that lift your spirits?

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Until next time,

Alfie X