by An Exploration into the Meaning and Power of Gratitude
How does it feel when you are grateful? Let’s just take a few moments to explore this.
Let us start by recalling a time when we were feeling grateful. You can choose something from a long time ago or something that happened much more recently. For the purpose of this exercise it doesn’t really matter which.
Take a few deep breaths in and let yourself softly focus on that memory of when you were feeling grateful…
Close your eyes and breathe a few deep breaths to get centred and focused ahhhhhh … letting yourself become still as you let yourself be with the memory, exploring it now …
How does it feel in your body?
Most people will feel a sense of expansion in the heart or in the chest area or maybe around the throat … you might feel a kind of buzziness, or tingling or some heat inside.
Close your eyes for a few minutes, breathe deeply and give yourself time to really explore what’s going on inside of your body.
You may notice a subtle outpouring of energy from the inside, flowing outwards and it may actually feel quite pleasant. If you continue to focus you may even notice yourself beginning to smile. It feels good, wholesome, self-validating and light.
Can you feel that love is here? It’s a feeling that harmonizes, unites or brings us together in a wide embrace. In fact I would say it is virtually impossible to feel alone or separated when you are immersed in a state of gratitude.
It also feels very abundant. Where there is gratitude there is no sense of lack or wanting. We feel fulfilled, happy and satisfied. The energy of lack and wanting dissolves into appreciation and fullness.
How to Engage with the Energy of Gratitude
When we take the time to sit for a few minutes in a state of gratitude, we raise our energy to a higher state and from this place we can see things more clearly, free from the grip of fear, doubt and stuckness.
Whenever we align with the higher energy of gratitude, we dissolve resistance and enable our brain to envision and bring about positive shifts in our lives and step into living with ease, trust and joy
We can choose to engage with this beautiful and very powerful and nurturing gift of gratitude as a regular and practical on-going process, an active, dynamic and transformative form of worship. The more we practice it the more it will continue to nurture and nourish us and to turn our hearts to what is best
Have you noticed how joyful grateful people are? You find them not wanting, since they act out of a sense of ‘enough’.
Ungrateful people on the other hand are miserable and complain and suffer, since they act out of a sense of ‘not enough’.
So in our busy, busy lives … imagine we were to just stop … take ourselves off automatic … breathe and refocus … even for just a few minutes … and start to bring gratitude back into our minute-to-minute daily schedule. Instead of distractedly chasing the next thing, and the next in the attempt to fill what we often feel is a deep, empty and insatiable hole, we can simply choose to appreciate what we have in this moment
You Are a Miracle
There is just so much we take for granted. What if we just stop and take the time to remember with gratitude the absolute miracle we are …
And Allah brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers, knowing nothing and gave you hearing and sight and hearts that haply you might give thanks (S16A78)
…. we would then reconnect with our true and higher gifted nature and find ourselves being nourished and guided by love in all of our affairs.
Everything we know and understand is from Allah. There is so much to be grateful for. The discovery of ourselves, our potential and our relationship to Allah and the world is an amazing and beautiful journey.
And Allah blesses the grateful with more. Focus on the things you are grateful for and Allah will give you more to be grateful for. The secret Law of Attraction has been here all along.
Through our journey in life and all of its experiences, Allah gives us the knowledge and capacity to understand the difference between heart-expanding, life-affirming gratitude and the contraction and deprivation of ingratitude.
Even our pain contains so many hidden treasures. We can wander from the Path and by His Mercy be brought back to a deeper appreciation of our lives and loved ones, to be grateful to have found our way back home after experiencing the angst of feeling like a victim, abandoned, separated, lost and alone.
Profound gratitude brings deep surrender and bliss
In the end it’s a choice….
We showed him the way whether he be grateful or ungrateful (S76A3)
The very essence of our being on this earth is the test of our being grateful or not.
…. And swiftly shall we reward those who are grateful … (S3A45)
We show our gratitude to Allah by following, with a sincere and unhurried heart, the Way He has laid out for us. When we follow it we are promised further reward.
His bounties are unending. Let our gratitude follow suit.