There is a saying that if you aren’t grateful for the things you have now, you will never be grateful for the things you are wishing for.
Being grateful for what you already have is a key aspect of happiness.
It is not about mumbling off five daily gratitudes like a “must-do-happiness-ritual” but really feeling into that which you are truly grateful for.
“I’m so grateful that I have been given this opportunity, that I’m healthy, and that I have been given the time and the financial means.”
You feel that gratitude energy flow like a wave through every cell of your body in one big exhaling breath, while you move your lips into a gentle smile.
The advanced spiritual teachers even give thanks for the unfortunate events that come into their lives, because they view this is an opportunity for the soul to grow.
Most prayer emphasizes the wanting of something: better health, finding a job, a marriage partner, getting out of debt, having more money, or a new home.
It often comes out of a feeling of privation and deficiency.
Expressing in a prayer gratitude comes with an entirely different mindset of abundance, empowerment, and the wisdom that all is grace and interwoven within the bigger matrix of higher meaning.
Gratitude comes from within and it is entirely different from the consumer-orientated mindset, that is insatiable and never satisfied.
Being grateful puts things into perspective, and gives true meaning to being grateful for every day where we are healthy, breathing and alive.
I met several people on my Camino walks who really put my own difficulties, rather than problems into perspective and gave me a new sense of meaning when they told me of their own battles.
On my first Camino, I met a cheerful, lanky guy from Scotland in his early 60s. Only later did I find out that he had walked all the way through England, France and Spain. It was his way of dealing with the grief of losing his beloved wife of many years to cancer.
There are always things to be grateful for, especially those things we just take for granted. Nothing is permanent.
Reino Gevers – Author, Mentor and Consultant
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