The Power (23 page)
“Gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue.”
Muhammad
(570-632)
FOUNDER OF ISLAM
If you use gratitude a little, your life will change a little. If you use gratitude a lot every day, your life will change in ways you can hardly imagine now. Not only does gratitude multiply everything in your life, it also eliminates the negative things. No matter what negative situation you may find yourself in, you can
always
find something to be grateful for, and as you do, you harness the force of love that eliminates negativity.
Gratitude Is the Bridge to Love
“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
TRANSCENDENTALIST AUTHOR
Gratitude took my mother from the deepest grief into happiness. My mother and father fell in love with each other virtually at first sight, and they had the most beautiful love affair and marriage I have ever seen. When my father died, my mother suffered from enormous grief, because she missed my father so much. But amidst her grief and pain, my mother began to look for things to be grateful for. Other than being grateful for all she had received from the decades of love and happiness with my father, she looked for things to be grateful for in the future. The first thing she found to be grateful for was that now she could travel. Traveling was something my mother had always wanted to do but didn’t do when my father was alive, because he never wanted to travel. My mother did fulfill her dream; she traveled, and she did many other things that she had always wanted to do. Gratitude was the bridge that took my mother out of immense grief and into building a new life of happiness.
It’s impossible to feel sad or have any negative feeling when you’re grateful. If you’re in the midst of a difficult situation, look for something to be grateful for. When you find one thing, then look for another, and then another, because every single thing you find to be grateful for changes the situation. Gratitude is the bridge from negative feelings to harnessing the force of love!
“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
John Henry Jowett
(1864-1923)
PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER AND AUTHOR
When anything good happens to you in your day, give thanks. It doesn’t matter how small it is, say
thank you
. When you get the perfect parking space, hear your favorite song on the radio, approach a light that turns green, or find an empty seat on the bus or train, say
thank you
. These are all good things you’re receiving from life.
Give thanks for your senses: your eyes that see, your ears that hear, your mouth that tastes, your nose that smells, and your skin that lets you feel. Give thanks for the legs you walk on, your hands that you use to do almost everything, your voice that enables you to express yourself and communicate with others. Give thanks for your amazing immune system that keeps you well or heals you, and for all your organs that maintain your body immaculately so that you can live. Give thanks for the magnificence of your human mind that no computer technology in the world can duplicate. Your entire body is the greatest laboratory on the planet, and there’s nothing that can come even close to replicating its magnificence. You are a miracle!
Give thanks for your home, your family, your friends, your work, and your pets. Give thanks for the sun, the water that you drink, the food that you eat, and the air that you breathe; without any of them you wouldn’t be alive.
Give thanks for the trees, the animals, the oceans, the birds, the flowers, the plants, blue skies, rain, the stars, the moon, and our beautiful planet.
Give thanks for the transportation you use every day. Give thanks for all the companies that provide you with essential services so that you can live a comfortable life. So many human beings toiled and sweated so that you can turn on a tap and have fresh water. So many human beings gave their life’s work so that you can flick a light switch and have electricity. Think about the magnitude of human beings who slaved day after day, year after year, to lay the train tracks across our planet. And it’s almost impossible to imagine the number of people who did the backbreaking work of making the roads we drive on that form a connecting network of life for the world.
“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906-1945)
LUTHERAN PASTOR
To use the power of gratitude, practice it. The more you
feel
gratitude, the more love you
give
; and the more love you give, the more you
receive
.
Are you grateful for your health when it’s good? Or do you only notice your health when your body gets sick or hurts?
Are you grateful when you have a good night’s sleep? Or do you take those nights for granted and only think of sleep when you’ve been deprived of it?
Are you grateful for your loved ones when everything is going well, or do you only talk about your relationships when there are problems?
Are you grateful for electricity when you use an appliance or flick a switch? Or do you only think of electricity when there’s a power blackout?
Are you grateful to be alive each day?
Every spare second is an opportunity to be grateful and multiply the things you love. I used to think I was a grateful person, but I didn’t know what gratitude really was until I practiced it.
If I am driving or walking I use the time to give thanks for everything in life. Even walking from my kitchen to my bedroom I will give thanks. With my heart I say, “Thank you for my life. Thank you for the harmony. Thank you for the joy. Thank you for my health. Thank you for the fun and excitement. Thank you for the wonder of life. Thank you for everything wonderful and good in my life.”
Be grateful! Gratitude costs you nothing, but it is worth more than all the riches in the world. Gratitude enriches you with all the riches in life, because whatever you’re grateful for multiplies!
The Key of Play
