It’s All About Gratitude

For me, it’s all about gratitude.  This has been, and continues to be, the magic key for me in all ways in my life.

I’m only now, in my 50’s, coming into understanding of what love is.  The love my parents taught me was more about power than love really.

Love was a lever to get the upper hand, and a prize you would get if you towed the line.  It’s how they were trained too, and in their view it was how to train the little animal to be a human.  It’s what you did with your children if you cared enough to pay attention to them.

Of course they loved me, and they did this in the very best way they knew how.  If I ever thought anything else (and I did), I’ve forgiven them and myself for it.

The truth is that we’re all doing the best we can all the time.  I can hear the groans out there, because they’re in here too, but this is the truth of it.

I can look at this from the perspective of understanding the best I could do in my past was pretty weak, and yes, it was petty plenty of times.  I was petty, weak, destructive (particularly to self), and worst of all, unloving and unappreciative in general.  Under the spell of such an attitude, all the obvious and consistent worldly and spiritual blessings of every moment went unnoticed.

Now I do better than this, and big part of the reason I’m able to do better is because I’ve learned to release the judgments.

Since my path was one of passing through dark and dangerous places, and what I thought love was about was actually about power-posturing, it’s probably not hard to imagine how this way would not be the best way to understand love and be able to take the direct path to BE love.

Like I said, for me, the magic key was gratitude.  It was initially through having terminal cancer that this realization began to solve the puzzle for me.  It cracked open my broken heart and showed me clearly, and in a dramatic enough fashion, that without gratitude there is nothing.

When I say there is nothing, I mean there is nothing worth anything until there is the ability to appreciate.  No matter what is on ‘my plate’ at any given moment, unless and until I appreciate it, it might as well not be there.  I could have the King’s feast before me and still sit there crying over how hungry I am, and how life isn’t supporting me.

This was how it was before cancer for me. I was doing the best I could at the moment, but this whole attitude was so anti-life in its essence it nearly killed me.  In the intense blessing of the moments during the process of recovery, I got that appreciation and gratitude was my way back to life and to healing.

It wasn’t a one-shot wonder either, the practice of gratitude.  It’s been a daily do, and because of this devotion I’ve built the foundation for all the other details of love to come into focus.

I’m always deeply gratified by the mention of the importance of gratitude in the channeled information.  I sometimes wonder if it’s being heard and integrated into our lives in the devoted fashion it deserves.  I wish I could wrap this precious gift up and deliver to each doorstep.

If I could do this, how many would open the door and bring the gift of gratitude in?  When it was unwrapped and sitting on the table, how many would treasure this divine gift and use it all day long every day?

For this is a gift that just keeps on giving.  It’s the most powerful and straight-forward way to raise one’s vibration, and it’s the strongest foundation for living moment to moment.  It ensures that the good stuff is always on one’s plate.  This happens, and all because of the focus on gratitude.

May this be the new ‘viral’ movement in our collective consciousness, and may it bring our focus to all the wonder that goes unnoticed.  I think when this happens broadly enough, our world is going to look, feel, and be a much better place for everyone.