The gifts that gratitude offers us for Louise Hay

  • 2014

Lee Coit

About twenty years ago Lee Coit began the search for answers to his suffering and frustration. He decided to devote a whole year to his search, and the result was to discover an inner guide. Since then he has followed that inner voice to make all his decisions. This path has led him to a peaceful and happy life, to write books of great popularity (Listening [Listen] and Accepting [Accept]) and to give conferences and seminars in the United States and Europe. For about ten years he directed the Las Brisas retreat center. Its spectacular transformation from being an executive of a busy advertising agency to being a happy and accomplished spiritual person, gives hope to all who wish to live in a better way.

We think that gratitude is to thank with words or deeds to correspond to someone's kindness. I was educated to always thank you even if I wasn't really grateful. Gratitude can be transformed into an automatic response to any situation that benefits us, and we usually express it without realizing its many benefits. Like the celebration of Thanksgiving, the expression of gratitude can become so formal that it loses its true meaning. In the same way that "How are you?" Is not a question but a greeting, "Thank you" can become just a nice way to end a meeting or a conversation.

What gifts does gratitude offer us when we express it? An ancient spiritual teaching says that "giving and receiving are the same." If so, what is the use of thanking? First, gratitude has enormous regenerative powers. A long time ago I discovered that thanking what I had served to overcome the feeling of self-pity. My gratitude to other people always increased my happiness. Every time I felt little appreciated, I recounted all the wonderful things that had happened to me recently and it made me happy. Thanking what I have is also an effective way to free myself from a sense of loss. When I am aware of all the love I receive, I can quickly forget my problems. Gratitude is a great way to stop focusing on negative situations and focus my attention on what's right. Whether I thank my Divine Source or my friends, simply being aware of what I receive and expressing my gratitude in an active way, produces the desired state of joy.

The second thing I checked about being grateful was that I could extend my present joy back, thinking with gratitude at people and events from my past. That always makes me smile, and my heart floods with joy when I remember with love my fabulous friends and the good times we have been through. Over the years I have observed that the more gratitude I feel for the past, the happier I am in the present. Reaching a state of joy with gratitude is easy for me when I think of pleasant memories, but I do not exclude unpleasant memories from my gratitude. Feeling grateful for those people who think they have hurt us may be more difficult, but it is a very effective way to heal the past. I call that "unconditional gratitude." It means that we thank Mud the world, regardless of whether we think they deserve it or not.

What works for me is to remember only the good things of each person and put aside the other thoughts - I always manage to find something to be sincerely grateful to each person. Sometimes I have even started with the idea that at least those people are no longer in my life. Then I forget my wishes and expectations about how they should have acted and try to think of some good quality they have. Although small, I insist on that thought and discard the other memories. Once, for example, I started with the idea that when I had lunch with that person, we always went to a nice place. Daily I bring the chosen person to my mind and try to add another good quality. If that day I can't see any new quality in it, I go back to an old one. I do this until I manage to think of that person without disgust or without the desire to avoid it. Before I know something surprising begins to happen.

At first, it may be difficult for me to find something to thank you for, however small, but when you persevere in the attempt, good qualities appear little by little. They may not be the kind of qualities that I like, but what do you see? like another person. If I continue to look for good qualities, after a while I start to see how other people in my past benefited me. Maybe they didn't try to help me, but my gratitude opens my vision to a point where I can see that they made me a true spiritual gift. A true spiritual gift is something that increases my awareness of my true spiritual nature. Nothing happens if we never reach that point where we see that these people have helped us in a human or mundane way. Nothing happens if these people never change in a way that we approve. It is important to be honest in feelings and not suppress old wounds or pretend that everything is fine if it is not.

To see the spiritual gift, I put aside my ideas of how I want things to be. It is good for me to ask questions like this: "How did this person help me become more aware of my spiritual nature?" "Although their actions seemed harmful to my human and physical self, how did they contribute to favoring and supporting my spiritual self?" As you can see, these questions are difficult. There may be a desire to keep another person locked in a network of accusation and guilt. At first it may seem to you that expressing unconditional gratitude in these situations is like "releasing" people who dislike us. I can assure you, from my own experience, that it is we who are liberated. Gratitude, like his brother's forgiveness, first releases the person who expresses it. Gratitude frees us from our self-imposed prison of hatred and desire for revenge. What we consider grievances of the past are the bars of our prison. Unconditional gratitude makes these bars disappear. Hate not only imprisons us in a small cell of self-compassion, but also separates us from those people who want to bring love to our lives. (Hate includes rage to a seemingly innocent desire to avoid someone.) Our past, freed by gratitude, frees our present to be as it could be.

Finally, the most wonderful gift that unconditional gratitude offers us is clarity and clairvoyance. By expressing unconditional gratitude, I begin to see that everything is here to bless me. The truth is that I don't know how to explain how this happens. It just happens. It makes no sense if we consider it from the point of view of our worldly thinking processes. Only the actual act in which unconditional gratitude is expressed produces the fantastic result of seeing clearly. As I continue to extend my gratitude to all the people of my past and present, I begin to see that everything around me is in true harmony. I begin to see that what I considered harmful and unfair was not really so; Seeing it that way was a misunderstanding on my part, an erroneous judgment based on my perception, which has a very limited scope.

Apparently human perception is very powerful. It comes from our limited concept of ourselves. From this point of view, that of the perspective of limited and disconnected beings, we see a world full of dangers and sufferings. If we refuse to act according to this perception, and instead want to see what is happening in our spiritual life, we have a totally different view. We begin to see the interconnection and inter-sustainability relations of reality. We begin to see the spiritual dance to which each one is dedicated. It is important not to try to discover what dance is, but simply to let it be revealed to us and then move to the beat. Unconditional gratitude is not intended to control the situation; what it does is free us from stress and suffering; It replaces our frustration with peace, joy and happiness that are ours by nature.

The circle of gratitude

Terah Kathryn Collins

Terah Kathryn Collins practices, teaches and lectures about Feng Shui, the Chinese art of space use, in San Diego. His specialty is to teach people to see through their F Eyes Feng Shui, opening the vision that leads to a life full of harmony, well-being and balance . She is the author of the book The Western Cuide to Feng Shui, *

Expressing gratitude was something I learned by observing other people. At first I was not very good. I often forgot it or was not in the mood to thank you. In addition, I figured that people would not notice if they did not show my gratitude; In any case, it was something like giving them a gift they didn't expect. But sometimes that he was in the mood to do it and blessed someone with a sincere Thank you, something magical always happened.

A wave of joy ran through my whole body, connecting me with the other person. He began to remember it more frequently.

I like to try different ways to express gratitude, to see its effects- Surprising someone with a thank you is fabulous; his face always lights up, we laugh and for a moment we are holding hands. Gratitude covers all my life with a pink glow. The more grateful I am for all things in life, the more reasons I find to be. I thank you for the great things, such as my tribu, or my friends and family. I thank you for personal things, such as my good health and my wonderful profession. And gratitude extends to small things: the arrangement of fresh flowers, the fruit bowl full of oranges, the fire of the home. Putting gratitude on anything makes it grow.

Does this mean that because today I am grateful for the food I have on my table I will soon be grateful that all the people in my community, neither region and the whole world have food in abundance? Could it be that for thanking the peace that is now in my neighborhood I will soon have the opportunity to thank for peace on Earth?

I have decided that the answer is YES. The circle of gratitude expands day by day. A thought of thanks and you're already inside. And once you're inside, you see the circle grow.

Gratitude, the essential ingredient of life

Tom Costa

Tom Costa is the founder of the Church of Desert Religious Science, in Palm Desert (California), and currently belongs to the board of directors of International Religious Science. Due to his popularity as a speaker, he has appeared many times on television, and has given lectures and seminars throughout the United States, Canada and Britain. He is the author of Life! You Wanna Make Something oflt? [Lifetime! Do you want to do something about her?]

My attitude of gratitude has developed over the last seven decades of my life.

My deep conviction of the spiritual privilege of being grateful was put to the test when I began my work as a spiritual pastor in 1974. I was orienting a man who felt very unhappy. He was in good health, played tennis daily, had a good economic position and loved his job; I had just celebrated the marriage ceremony of him and his new and faithful wife; He also had loving children from his previous marriage. And yet, although all aspects of his life (health, wealth, love and work) seemed to work well, he still felt miserable.

As a rookie spiritual pastor, I felt blocked by that man's problem. What could I do? How could I help him out of his depression? What was appearing throughout our sessions was their lack of gratitude. He never appreciated his health, his wealth, his children, his home or his life. I took all those things for granted. That encouraged me to learn more about that nebulous but essential ingredient of our life: GRATITUDE.

How well I remember when, many years ago, I was doing what is called Fifth Step in the Twelve Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. This Fifth Step is one in which someone, perhaps a spiritual pastor, listens to the story of the alcoholic's life until he recognized his alcoholism. A young woman told me: "You can't be grateful and be miserable at the same time."

Probably then I was 40 years older than that young woman, but I was spiritually stunned. I had never heard that phrase before, and I found it made perfect sense. Since then I have used that thought in my pastoral work, in classes and seminars and in my personal life: You cannot be grateful and be miserable at the same time. It is emotionally impossible to combine both.

When I think about this concept, I remember my Catholic education and the prayer of the rosary. I now use what I call a mental rosary of gratitude. I review the "accounts, " so to speak, every day and often in my morning meditations and prayers. I count my blessings, not someone else's.

These moments of gratitude in my life do not take place only on Thanksgiving. These moments of gratitude are something I do every day. I have so many accounts to review, ..., accounts that represent the people who have helped me, and accounts that represent the people who did not help me (and thus made me stronger in all aspects of my life). There are accounts that represent my intimate friends and my relatives, and accounts that represent my health, my body, my physical senses and my home, which I love and enjoy. I thank you for my pets, who daily teach me unconditional love. I appreciate my ability to choose my thoughts, my attitudes, my path.

Take a few moments each day to thank all you are and what you are not. Thank everything you have and what you don't have.

Remember: You can't be grateful and be miserable at the same time.

The gifts that gratitude offers us for Louise Hay

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