The Magic (5 page)
Today’s magical practice is being grateful for people just as they are! Even if all of your relationships are currently good, they will increase with more magnificence through this practice. And with everything you find to be grateful for in each person, you will see gratitude perform its breathtaking magic, and your relationships will be stronger, more fulfilling, and more enriching than you ever thought they could be.
Choose three of your closest relationships to be grateful for. You might choose your wife, your son, and your father, or your boyfriend, your business partner, and your sister. You might choose your best friend, your grandmother, and your uncle. You can choose any three relationships that are important to you, as long as you have a photograph of each person. The photograph can be just of the person, or the both of you together.
Once you have selected your three relationships and photographs, you are ready to set the magic into motion. Sit down and think about the things you are the most grateful for about each person. What are the things you love the most about this person? What are their best qualities? You could be grateful for their patience, ability to listen, talents, strength, good judgment, wisdom, laugh, sense of humor, eyes, smile, or kind heart. You could be grateful for the things you enjoy doing with the person, or you can recall a time when the person was there for you, cared for, or supported you.
After you’ve spent some time thinking about what you’re grateful for about the person, put their photograph in front of you, and with a pen and notebook, or on your computer, choose the five things you are the most grateful for. Look at the photograph of the person as you make your list of five things, begin each sentence with the magic words,
thank you,
address the person by their name, and then write what you’re grateful for.
Thank you,
their name
, for
what?
.
For example, “Thank you, John, for always making me laugh.” Or, “Thank you, Mom, for supporting me through college.”
When you’ve finished your lists for all three people, continue with this magical practice by taking the photographs with you today and putting them in a place where you will see them often. Whenever you look at the photographs today, thank the person by saying the magic words,
thank you,
and the person’s name:
Thank you, Hayley.
If you’re moving around a lot, carry the photographs with you in your bag or pocket, and make an effort to look at the photographs three times during the day, following the same procedure.
Now you know how to use gratitude’s magical power to transform your relationships into Magical Relationships. Although it is not part of the requirement of this book, you may want to take this amazing practice and use it every day if necessary to make every relationship you have magnificent. You can use it on the same relationship as many times as you want. The more you can be grateful for the good things in your relationships, the faster every relationship in your life will miraculously change.
Magic Practice Number 3
Magical Relationships
- Repeat steps one to three of Magic Practice Number 1 – Count Your Blessings: Make a list of ten blessings. Write
why
you’re grateful. Reread your list, and at the end of each blessing say
thank you, thank you, thank you,
and feel as grateful for that blessing as you can. - Choose
three
of your closest relationships and collect a photograph of each person. - With the photo in front of you, write
five
things you are most grateful for about each person, in your journal or on your computer. - Begin each sentence with the magic words,
thank you,
include their name, and what you’re specifically grateful for. - Carry the three photographs with you today, or put them in a place where you will see them often. Look at the photographs on at least
three
occasions, speak to the person’s face in the photograph, and thank them by saying the magic words,
thank you,
and their name.
Thank you, Hayley. - Before you go to sleep, take your Magic Rock in one hand, and say the magic words,
thank you,
for the
best
thing that happened during the day.
Day 4
Magical Health
“The greatest wealth is health.”
Virgil (70 BC–19 BC)
ROMAN POET
Health is the most precious thing in life, and yet more than anything else, we can take our health for granted. For many of us, the only time we think of our health is when we lose it. Then the realization hits us: without our health, we have nothing.
There’s an Italian proverb that speaks the truth about health for many of us: “He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not.” While we rarely think of our health when we are well, you will have felt the truth of those words even when you had something minor like a cold or the flu, and you were bedridden. When you are not well, all you want is to feel better, and nothing else matters other than having your health back again.
Health is a gift of life; it is something you receive and continue to receive, each day. In addition to everything else we do to be healthy, we have to be grateful for our health to continue to receive more health!
Remember:
“Whoever has
gratitude
(for health) will be given more, and he or she will have an abundance. Whoever does not have
gratitude
(for health), even what he or she has will be taken from him or her.”
You may know of people who chose a healthy lifestyle and yet still lost their health.
Giving
thanks in return for the health you are
receiving
is vital. When you are grateful for your health, you will not only maintain your current health, at the same time you will set the magic into motion to increase the flow of health to you. You will also begin to see the improvements to your health happen right away. Little aches and pains, moles, scars, or marks will start to magically disappear, and you will notice your energy, vitality, and happiness increase markedly.
As you will learn in a later practice, through the daily practice of gratitude for your health, you can improve your eyesight, hearing, and all of your senses, along with every function in your entire body. And all of it happens like magic!
“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
John Henry Jowett (1864–1923)
PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER AND WRITER
The degree that you are grateful for your health is the exact degree that your health will magically increase, and the degree that you’re not grateful is the exact degree that your health will decrease. Living with a decreased amount of health means your energy, vitality, immune system, clarity of thought, and every other function of your body and mind is weakened.
Being grateful for your health ensures that you will continue to receive more health to be grateful for, and at the same time it eliminates stress and tension in your body and mind. Scientific research studies have shown that stress and tension are at the root of many diseases. Studies have also revealed that people who practice gratitude heal faster, and are likely to live seven years longer!
You can see in the state of your health right now how grateful you have been. You should feel amazing every day. If you feel heavy and life feels like a real effort to get through, or if you don’t feel younger than your age, then you are living with decreased health. One of the major causes of this loss of vitality is a lack of gratitude. All of that is about to change, though, because you are going to use gratitude’s magical power for the health of your body!
The Magical Health practice begins with reading through the following paragraphs about the health of your body. After you read each italicized line for a particular part of your body, close your eyes and mentally repeat the italicized line, feeling as grateful as you can for that part of your body. Remember that when you think about
why
you’re grateful, it will help you feel gratitude more deeply, and the deeper you feel it, the faster you will feel and see the amazing results in your body.
Think about your legs and feet; they are your main form of transportation in your life. Think about all the things you use your legs for, like balancing, standing up, sitting down, exercising, dancing, climbing steps, driving a car, and, most of all, the miracle of walking. Your legs and feet allow you to walk around your home, walk to the bathroom, go to the kitchen to get a drink, and walk to your car. Your legs and feet allow you to walk around stores, down the streets, through an airport, and along the beach. The ability to walk gives us freedom to enjoy life! Say
thank you for my legs and feet,
and really mean it.
Think about your arms and hands and how many things you pick up and hold in one day. Your hands are the major tools of your life, and they are in nonstop use all day long, every day. Your hands allow you to write, eat a meal, use a phone or computer, shower, get dressed, use the bathroom, pick up things and hold them, and do everything for yourself. Without the use of your hands you would be dependent on other people to do things for you. Say
thank you for my arms, hands, and fingers!
Think about your amazing senses. Your sense of taste gives you so much pleasure multiple times throughout the day as you eat and drink. You know from losing your sense of taste through a cold that the joy of eating and drinking disappears without being able to taste food or drinks. Say
thank you for my amazing sense of taste!
Your sense of smell enables you to experience the beautiful fragrances of life: flowers, perfumes, clean sheets, dinner as it’s cooking, a fire burning on a winter’s night, the air on a summer’s day, freshly cut grass, the smell of the earth after rain. Say
thank you for my wonderful sense of smell!
If you didn’t have a sense of touch, you would never know hot from cold, soft from sharp, or smooth from rough. You would never be able to feel objects, or physically express love or receive it. Your sense of touch allows you to touch your loved ones with a reassuring hug, and to feel the touch of a hand from one human being to another is one of the most precious things in life. Say
thank you for my precious sense of touch!
Think about the miracle of your eyes, which enable you to see the faces of your loved ones and friends, read printed books, newspapers, and emails, watch television, see the beauty of nature, and, most importantly, see your way through life. Just put a blindfold on for an hour and try to do what you normally do, and you will appreciate your eyes. Say
thank you for my eyes that enable me to see everything!
Think about your ears, which enable you to hear your own voice and other people’s voices so you can talk to people. Without ears and your sense of hearing you could not use a phone, hear music, listen to the radio, hear your loved ones talk, or hear any of the sounds of the world around you. Say
thank you for my hearing!
And to use any of your senses would be impossible without your brain, which processes over a million messages a second through all of your senses! It is actually your brain that enables you to sense and experience life, and there is no computer technology in the world that can duplicate it. Say
thank you for my brain and my beautiful mind!
Think about the trillions of cells working unceasingly, 24/7, for your health, body, and life. Say
thank you cells!
Think about your life-sustaining organs, which are continuously filtering, cleaning, and renewing everything in your body, and think about the fact that they do all their work automatically without you even having to think about it. Say
thank you, organs, for working perfectly!
But more miraculous than any sense, system, function, or other organ in our body, is the organ of your heart. Your heart governs the life of every other organ, because it is your heart that keeps the life flowing to every system in your body. Say
thank you for my strong and healthy heart!
Next, take a piece of paper or a card, and write on it in big bold letters:
THE GIFT OF HEALTH IS KEEPING ME ALIVE.
Take the card with you today, and put it in a place where you know you will see it often. If you work at a desk, you can put it right in front of you. If you’re a driver, put it in a place in your car or truck where you will see it often. If you’re at home most of the time, you can put it where you wash your hands, or near your phone. Choose a place where you know you will see the words you’ve written often.
