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The Habit of Being Grateful

The Habit of Being Grateful

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And, because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

A wonderful quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, it is supported by many new thought/spiritual leaders.

I agree with the quote with one exception: the word “good.”

As I have cultivated my habit of being grateful for everything that comes to me, I realize that all things have contributed to my advancement, including some things I might (judgmentally) categorize as “bad.” As I look as some of the “negative” experiences in my life, I realize I have learned and grown as much from them as the “positive” experiences.

Who I am today is the sum total of all of my experiences, no matter how I want to categorize them. And I am grateful for all of them, “good or bad,” as I really like the “person” I have become.

I look around at experiences I see others have, and I wonder how their experiences might have affected me and how they would have influenced me to become the enlightened spiritual being I am today. As I reflect on this thought and compare theirs to my experiences, it is clear to me that the experiences I chose were the ones that would help me to arrive at the place I am today.

Some of my experiences protected me, even though I had no idea that’s what their purpose was. Others became learning situations. All of them provided me with an opportunity for growth. Whether I chose to grow as a result may have taken a while to manifest. I think the act of being able to be grateful for the experience is when the growth from the experience began.

 

Are You in Matrix?

Are You in Matrix?

What do you believe?

Have you seen the movie The Matrix? If there’s one thing I got out of that movie, it’s that what we believe today may not be true.

Have you ever had a time in your life where you realized that something you believed for many years just wasn’t true? Or that, even though you believed something when you were younger, you have now taken a different perspective on that idea and it is almost contrary to what you believed before.

Does that change who you are?

Does that make you a bad person because you changed your mind?

Perhaps when you formed an opinion the first time, you didn’t have all the facts and years leater, you finally found a piece of the puzzle you didn’t eve know was missing, but it altered how you felt or how you looked at something.

How do we arrive at our opinions and beliefs anyway?

Aren’t they a culmination of things we hear, see, and read?
(Don’t believe something just because it is in print.)

One of the biggest influences in how we form opinions based on little or no research is from what we hear our parents saying. If they say something is good, we want to believe it is good because we want to believe our parents. If they say something is bad, same thing. We do, too.

If you grew up hearing, “You can’t make a living in this world!”, what do you think you will end up believing? If you grew up hearing, “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” do you think you’d believe it?

You may be saying to yourself, “Just because someone else says something doesn’t influence how I think and what I believe in.”

Okay. I want you to try the following exercise. Everyday, three times a day for a month, I want you to look in the mirror and say the following:

  • I am an idiot.
  • I am worthless.
  • I am broke.

You don’t want to do it?

Why not?

You said that you weren’t influenced by what people said. Do you think that at the end of the 30 days, you might feel like a worthless, broke, idiot?

If you said yes, or feel that your self worth would have been taken down a notch, you have to admit that what others say, even what we say to ourselves, has an effect on our minds.

Do you think that you might feel better about yourself if you said the following phrases three times a day for the next month?

  • I am wealthy.
  • I am great.
  • I am unstoppable.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Don’t believe everything you believe.
—Talking Moose circa 1990