The Attitude of Gratitude

Each November I practice a form of Mindfulness that I describe as living in the energy of Gratitude.

For the entire month, I wake up each morning expressing my thankfulness for people, places and things in my life. I challenge myself to find different, unique and new things to be grateful for each day, never to repeat the same ones for the 30 days of November. I continue with this state of mind ("be-ing" ) all day and end the evening reflecting upon how many things I have to be grateful for each day. This is what I describe as Level One of my practice.

Level Two is when I reach out to people in my life (during the entire month) and have a direct conversation with them, thanking them for being in my life and explaining to them what I appreciate, love and respect about them. I engage in this practice for the entire month of November and it often shocks people, as I share my thoughts and feelings with every person I see each day, from a clerk at the store, to a good friend, a stranger passing by, and even to a customer service agent on the phone who I am reaching out to with a problem.

I then take this practice a step further into Level Three, where I  engage in "random acts of kindness", finding new and different ways each day to do something kind. Sometimes it's for people I know, sometimes it's for random strangers and many times it's anonymous from me. The acts vary in scope, from grand gestures to a simple kindness. It's living in a state of grace, allowing love and gratitude to flow freely from me in each moment.

I began this practice over two decades ago, thinking it would be a good way to train my mind to see the good in each day and to follow the teaching that I share with my students in my 9 Life Altering Lessons book, "All That Happens, Happens for Good". 

This lessons requires students to expand their thought process and open to the possibility that no matter what challenging situation befalls them, there is some good coming from that experience.  It is life altering when one begins to change their perception and emotional reaction to what is occurring around them.

While I knew that practicing this act of mindfulness for a month at a time would build up that muscle in my mind to be aware of the bountiful gifts that are always being offered to me, I was surprised to discover some of the other aspects of this practice as they appeared.  By living in a state of gratitude, after several days, it became easier to see how every moment offered something to be thankful for. It also had the side effect of raising my mental and emotional energy fields, which I knew it would, but I was delighted to see how many new good "things" (people/places/opportunities/special moments/conversations/encounters/meetings/) were brought into my life as my thinking shifted and my energy rose.

These things I knew would happen, but what surprised me was how my patience grew! I'm not known for my patience, but as I live in gratitude, I seem to instinctively take a breath and pause before reacting to any situation. In that breath, I observe what is occurring around me, seeing the bigger picture of what is happening between me and the experience with a person, place or thing. That simple "beat", a moment, allows my emotions to process without reacting and gives my mind the time to process the event and then to select what feels like the best response that is most beneficial to all in the situation,  in the now and in the bigger long term picture.

I invite all of my students to practice this art of living in gratitude during the month of November and their responses over the years have been amazing, including lifting them out of their anxiety and sadness and opening their thoughts to new ideas. Their kind thoughts to others multiplies back to them and many have found that their lives changed in this month, with job offers, unexpected wealth sources, health challenges easing up, help in situations from strangers and so many other wonderful stories.

It's the holiday season and Thanksgiving is on the way. This year has brought more challenges to all of us than we could have imagined. Perhaps the way to turn this year around is to live in the "attitude of gratitude".  If you try this, I'd love to hear from you.

If you'd like to read tips on how to practice mindfulness as a group during the day of Thanksgiving, check out my blog post called - Three Ways To Awaken Consciousness and Transformation at Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone in the U.S. a very Happy Thanksgiving and to everyone around the world a very Happy Holiday Season, filled with love, joy, and gratitude.

All the best,

Kala