Leo Searle Hawkins shows us how the power of gratitude dissolves the sense of something lacking in our lives, and how what remains is the feeling of true fulfillment.
Have you found the new-age philosophy of “liking myself” doesn’t quite hit the mark? Sure, it’s a zillion times better than not liking myself but I’ve found it still leaves a feeling of something incomplete. I believe this is because our attention gets focused on a concept called “myself”.
I recently had an experience with a software company whose products and service left, shall we say, something to be desired.
The final email one of the owners sent me was only just tolerably polite. He gave me a refund after the most immense amount of product failures and less than helpful support. And to cap it off the email left an impression of blame coming my way for the failures of their product. He actually wrote, “we cannot be held accountable for the immense amount of time you’ve spent trying to get our product working on your site.” Hmmm …
You may be able to imagine what my knee-jerk reaction could have been. Calling him every kind of name, insinuating doubts about his parentage, and so on, and so on.
Actually, I felt deeply saddened at the way a long-term relationship had ground to an end in a digital war of attrition. It could so easily have been different if only they had acted more generously, had been willing to look at why someone who had been on their mailing list for several years, and who had bought three of their products, was so frustrated with them. They could have learned a great deal and left me an ex-customer but someone who felt well served.
Obviously this did not come to pass.
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But what did, for me, come from this otherwise sad episode is testimony to the transformative power of gratitude.
That gratitude is a good thing is not exactly front-page news. A short time in the personal development scene and it will soon become apparent that gratitude has made it into the top ten best qualities every new-age student should endeavour to cultivate.
Could we be grateful for all the apparently negative, painful thoughts, emotions, and experience?
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But what are we supposed to be grateful for? For our relationship, our home, our money, our car, our health, our pet poodle, and on and on? Of course. So far, so good. Absolutely nothing wrong with all that. And I’d bet the poodles of the world are delighted too.
But isn’t this all one-sided? A bit lop-eared? What about all the negative stuff in our lives? And yes, even the most ardent practitioners of positive affirmations have negative stuff. Could we be grateful for all the apparently negative, painful thoughts, emotions, and experiences that come to everyone on this planet who is still breathing?
Your first thought may be something like, “But that’s crazy. Why would I want to be grateful for the bad stuff? I just want to be rid of it.”
And your viewpoint would be perfectly reasonable. I have no argument. The thing about gratitude however, is that it is not reasonable. Its power cannot be understood by intellectual analysis and rational deduction. You will only know its secrets through practical experience.
I’ve found that the more grateful I am for everyone and everything – including, amazingly enough, all that is apparently negative and limiting – the more the negative thought patterns simply drop away. And what remains is a feeling of peaceful yummyness reminiscent of cuddling a rather nice lady at the end of a rather nice evening.
Gratitude can forge us into becoming bigger men, kinder men, more truly powerful men.
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The truth is that every experience life blesses us with can serve as our teacher. But only when we are willing, and humble, enough to receive the teaching.
Gratitude can forge us into becoming bigger men, kinder men, more truly powerful men. So why would we not want to be grateful for all that life offers us? The way I see it, to be grateful only for the pleasurable is to live an imbalanced life, an incomplete life.
The way of gratitude
Try this simple 3-step process to bring the power of gratitude into your life. You may need to run it past your critical mind a few times, but persevere. A bit of persistence and determination never did anyone any harm.
Step 1. Ask yourself: is it possible I could be grateful for X (a person, job, customer, thought, emotion, or experience)?
Step 2. Ask yourself: will I be grateful for X?
Step 3. Ask yourself: when will I be grateful for X? (Hint: “Now” is a pretty good time to do most everything …)
Then simply repeat, “Thank you, thank you, thank you” over and over, while breathing into your body and feeling your gratitude as deeply as you can. And you only need to this as best you can. Perfectionism is not required.
Feeling is the secret.
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Feeling the feeling of gratitude is the crucial key that opens the door of transformation. Intellectually repeating the words alone won’t do much of anything. Feeling is the secret.
I ran this process just now around those software guys who were less than generous to me. Literally as I was writing this article, I took time out to go for a stroll and did exactly the process I’ve laid out for you.
As I held them in the focus on my attention, allowing the whole scenario we had enacted together to arise, I repeated, “thank you , thank you, thank you” while breathing into my body and feeling my gratitude. By the time I got back from my walk all animosity had vaporised, leaving only gratitude for everything they have taught me. Which is quite a bit actually. And of course I am grateful to them because they gave me something real-life and practical to write about. Above all though I am simply resting in gratitude, because the feeling of gratitude is it’s own best reward.
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As the negative stuff drops away, the reality of who you truly are, prior to all concepts – including the concepts of both “I don’t like myself” and “I like myself” – stands unveiled.
This real you has no sense of lack or limitation whatever. And the feeling of being this real you could be called completeness, fulfilment, or simply, happiness.
At this point of completion, all sense of something lacking will have dropped away. Which brings us right back to where we began and the concept of myself. The difference, if you have followed through and taken action on putting the power of gratitude into practice, is that you will no longer have a feeling of something lacking in you or in your life.
The conceptual thought, “I don’t like myself” will have dissolved into an ocean of gratitude. And therefore, because the negative concept no longer exists, you will have no more need for affirming the positive concept that you “like yourself”.
You will be alive, prior to and free from all concepts of who you are.
You will simply be Being human …
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo: Flickr/ξωαŋ ThΦt (slowly back…)