It’s Thanksgiving next week, an important American tradition celebrated every fourth Thursday of November. My first Thanksgiving dinner was decades ago. I was a high school exchange student in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The highlight was not only the giant turkey but saying thank you for all the blessings. We took turns saying one big thing that we were grateful for the year.
I love this tradition to remind us to reflect on our blessings. As they say, after all, “The attitude of gratitude is the highest way of living.” It doesn’t mean convincing yourself that everything is fine and good. Living your life with gratitude means choosing to focus your time and attention on what you appreciate.
Appreciation connects us to everything – great and small – that we may otherwise take for granted.
Like the air you breathe to keep you alive, your good health, all your blessings, including your family and friends. If you are troubled right now because of the pandemic, you might consider trying to reframe how you think about it using the language of thankfulness. Ask yourself: What lessons is this pandemic teaching me? What ability, talents did this pandemic draw out of me that surprised me? How am I now more the person I want to be because of it? What virtues am I learning right now?
Gratitude is one of the highest vibrations in the Universe. The frequency of gratitude can immediately lift your spirits, eliminate fear and open your heart to receive love. The founder of Kundalini Yoga, Yogi Bhajan, had said, “You cannot live with applied consciousness until you understand that you have to be grateful for what you have. If you are grateful for what you have, then Mother Nature will give you more.”
Cultivate gratitude in your heart, so you can receive more blessings than you can imagine. Here’s how:
Start a gratitude journal if you haven’t, and write ten things you’re grateful for each day before you sleep and when you wake up until it becomes a habit. If you have children, teach your children to give thanks before they go to bed. Practice saying thank you for all the great things that are already present in your life.
Only when you realize that abundance already exists in your life can you allow more abundance to flow to you and through you.
And with that, if you reached this far, thank you for reading.
In loving service,
Rosan
