A Thanksgiving Full of Thankfulness

It’s become many family’s tradition to have each person sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table tell everyone in attendance for what they are grateful.  My family, too, honors this tradition although I’ve not had the privilege of spending Thanksgiving with them for many years.

In my younger years I, of course, had little regard for this tradition.  As a child, when food was set before me I was ready to eat!  Now my understanding of this practice gives me a much greater appreciation for its value in my life and in the lives of others.

The good folks at the Institute of HeartMath® have been working for many years to understand the power of emotion contained within the heart, the heart/brain entrainment, and the physiological ramifications of the heart’s emotional content.  As part of their findings, they’ve been able to produce conclusive evidence that we can shift ourselves from the feelings of stress and other negative feelings/emotions entirely by getting into our “heart space” and operating from one of the following four places for a period of three minutes: (1) Love (2) Appreciation (3) Gratitude OR (4) Compassion.  Getting into this space provides a shift in our being, no matter the circumstances surrounding our lives currently.  But this is no easy task – I assure you!  I’m able to easily produce these feelings for 30-45 seconds but my attention starts to wane or I begin to feel like I’ve exhausted my list of things for which I’m grateful.

One of the great things about this exercise is that it causes you to dig deep.  You’ll quickly run out of the surface things within the first minute.  The remainder or time causes you to really examine what you love, what you’re appreciative of, what you’re grateful for, or where in your life you have compassion.

To shift your being, you don’t need to pick one of the above items only.  You can move down into your heart and begin to exercise all four of the above feelings – you just need to stay in one or a combination of the four attributes for a period of three minutes in order to shift who you are being in the moment.

This technology is so effective that it’s now being used by major corporations to train their managers how to make effective decisions.  Rather than a manager going to a meeting where he is expected to make a decision just after having received a phone call or e-mail with negative considerations about that thing, these managers are learning to make decisions based on their hearts rather than their heads – and it’s having outstanding success.

I employ this technology when I get a phone call from someone who is having a stressful day or is feeling overwhelmed by what they have to do.  I simply ask them to tell me for what they are grateful.  They begin to tell me and when the finish, I ask them to tell me for what else they are grateful.  I continue this line of questioning, either with the same attribute or a combination of any/all of the above four attributes until I’ve helped that person get into his/her heart and produce love-filled emotion for three minutes.  Most people don’t even recognize that this is what I’m doing.  They simply know that they feel entirely better after that conversation and they are free of stress and clear of mind to take whatever their next steps are.

I’m providing this link to the “De-Stress Kit for the Changing Times” as posted on the HeartMath® website.  Give yourself the gift of reading this thirteen-page article today.  It will be the best preparation you could give yourself for this Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.  With this preparation, you’ll be aptly prepared to face whatever stress might come your way.

Happy Thanksgiving!  May you be blessed with the gifts of thankfulness and gratitude for that which you have.

[End of Post]

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Does It Not Look Like It Was Supposed To?

It’s difficult as a blogger to fully express a thought or idea in just a few paragraphs or a page.   There are so many variables that can be at play in any given thing.   So, there may be times that you disagree with what I’ve written because it may seem like a blanket statement.   I’ve tried my best to lay groundwork on this blog to develop my basic philosophies of life.   But, if one has not read all of the previous blogs, or if too much time has elapsed in between the like-ideas I’ve written about, it may seem that my world-view is somewhat slanted.

While the idea of blogging is that one is able to reach many people with short bursts of information, it has a downfall from the idea of a book in which someone can develop concepts, one on top of the other, to take a reader to some destination.   I write this simply to request that you keep this in mind as you read my writings.   I don’t believe that one blog will ever fully express how I feel about one subject or idea.   Nor can I imagine that one blog would provide all of the information one would need to transform a certain area of his life.   That being said, I do welcome any feedback, arguments, or ideas you have that may differ from what I’ve delivered here.   Unless I know how you are taking in the information, I’m blind to the changes in delivery that I may need to make.   So I want to extend a hearty thank you to all of you who have provided feedback thus far.

Thank You for your correspondence and your readership!!!

In our humanity, we have a predispositioned way of being which is to compare everything!   We compare where we were to where we are now.   We compare ourselves to others.   It’s part of our nature to judge and assess our lives, the lives of others, and everything in-between.   It doesn’t have to be that way and you may even know someone who has transcended above being that way.   It is something that can be transformed and, to do so requires a lot of intentionality!

But, seeing as how this is where most of us “live,” I thought it might be of help to draw your attention to this pattern that we have.   If you examine your life in its current state, you might even be able to quickly identify an area of your life that does not look like you had thought it would.   Maybe you imagined you would have more money.   Or, maybe you thought your health would be in a different state.   Possibly you’re living somewhere you never imagined you would live.   Or maybe your family structure looks differently than you would have believed.

What is it about that area of your life that looks differently from what you had thought it would?   Right now, how would you assess the difference?   Do you think that it’s good / bad?   Is it a workable situation or is it unworkable?   Do you find yourself wishing it were different or are you satisfied with where you are?

When we find ourselves in a place of comparison, there will always be one thing that we hold as better and the other as worse.   In our eyes, there is a clear winner and a distinct loser.   And, when we allow ourselves to get into that place of comparison, we will always find ourselves on the losing end!   Not so much because we always believe that everyone else is better off than we are, but because the mere act of comparison leaves us disempowered to be fully self-expressed and to allow the same of others.

There is a point-of-view (or state of being) that can provide us greater power in these areas.   And this more powerful place to stand is in the realm of satisfaction.   Just as a cold bottle of water can provide great satisfaction to your body if you’ve been working hard in the sun, learning to be satisfied with what we have and where we are in life can be equally rewarding on an emotional level.   Our well-being is completely affected by our satisfaction of life and of our present circumstances.

Being satisfied does not mean that you can’t, or shouldn’t, desire more out of life.   Our lives are meant to constantly be expanding.   However, there’s a certain peace that takes over when you can learn to be satisfied with where you are and what you have.   From that satisfaction, gratitude will be a natural expression for you – gratitude for what you possess, for who you are, and for the people in your life.   And, when gratitude abounds, joy springs up within our souls.

Take a few minutes to reflect on your life.   For what are you grateful?   If something doesn’t look like you thought it should, can you allow it to be as it is for right now?   If you can be satisfied with the conditions of your life right now, I promise you will find a place of peace and joy.   But satisfaction is a moment-by-moment condition.   It’s continuously an option to choose to be satisfied or to choose not to be.   The choice, and its consequences, is yours.

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Having Gratitude

I’ve been writing in my blogs for the month of July about things that relate to the Law of Attraction.  In today’s blog, I am focusing my attention on Gratitude.  Gratitude is one of the muscles that we need to exercise if we are going to see a return of that for which we’ve asked / believed.  Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) reads, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” 

Once you have asked for something, the second step is to believe - - believe that you have received that for which you asked.  In other words, faith is being certain that you have received that which you do not [yet] see [physically].  If you bought a lottery ticket and you checked the winning numbers against the numbers on your ticket and found that the numbers matched, would you wait to have an official tell you that you won the lottery money?  Would you have to wait until you actually, physically received a check in your hand before you believed that you had won?  No - - of course not!

Once you saw that the numbers matched, you would know that you had won and you would start to lay claim on that money even before you showed your winning ticket to the lottery official.  In your mind, you would start spending the money, investing the money, and determining exactly how this win-fall was going to change your life.

If you received an inheritance from a relative who passed on, would you wait to believe that you had received an inheritance until you received a check in your hand and were able to get to your bank to deposit the funds and then wait a few days for the check to clear to know that you had received something of value?  I’m asserting that you would already believe you had received the money before you ever saw the evidence of it.

Gratitude works from two realms:  (1) the realm of giving thanks for those things which are physically present in your life & (2) the realm of giving thanks in believing that you have received that for which you asked.

When we use the tool of gratitude in the first realm, we are giving thanks to God for the blessings that we currently have in our lives.  This is another way that we can turn our bad thoughts into thoughts that bring us joy and happiness.  The art of Thanksgiving always causes our hearts to overflow with good feelings.  Make it a practice to start off every day with some thoughts of thanksgiving - - giving gratitude to God for the good things in your life.  See if this practice doesn’t turn around your mood for the remainder of the day.

When we use the tool of gratitude in the second realm, we are thanking God for providing that for which we have asked.  Gratitude in this realm then, is part of the 2^nd step - - the step of believing.  If you truly believe that you received what you asked for, you will easily be able to give thanks to God for providing that thing.  We needn’t get stuck on whether or not the requested thing is yet physically seen.  This type of gratitude is just like the thanksgiving you would give if you had received an inheritance.  Your money may not yet be in hand, but you know that it is yours.

In closing, I am sharing the following quotes about Gratitude:

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” - Epictetus

“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness.  It will change your life mightily.” -  Gerald Good

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” - William Arthur Ward

"You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you." - Sarah Ban Breathnach

"To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven." - Johannes A. Gaertner

“The daily practice of gratitude is one of the conduits by which your wealth will come to you.” Wallace Wattles