To “feel” love is to be full of thankfulness. Love is thankfulness. Think about anytime you have felt love for someone or something, wasn’t it the same as being filled with appreciation? Weren’t you full of admiration and gratitude?
To express gratitude is a powerful spiritual exercise. We don’t have to “feel” thankful to be thankful. Let me say that again. We don’t have to “feel” thankful to be thankful. But when we start expressing gratitude, it usually isn’t long before the feeling of appreciation arises. And even if it doesn’t, our exercise of thankfulness prepares the ground to move out of stress into joy. It gets the energy moving.
THANKFULNESS IS HAPPINESS
Thankfulness is the same as happiness. Take a few moments and think of your happiest experiences of life. Do you get a sweet feeling of gratitude? How much do you appreciate these experiences? Or perhaps the opposite comes up. Perhaps you are grieved that you no longer have who or whatever made you happy. But the grief is only there because you were so happy for what you had when you had it, or you had such hopes and dreams of something beautiful.
GRIEF IS OUR RESPONSE TO THE LOSS OF WHAT WE LOVE
When we lose what is important to us, what we cherish and value, we experience grief. Grief is a soul pain, a wound in the fabric of our heart. In this world, almost everyone is carrying a load of unresolved grief. It is so prevalent we have come to think it is normal.
Usually we come out of our grieving period and are ready for a new chapter, but if the grief is not fully released it can remain as a stuck negative energy in our mind/body system and perpetuate itself in many ways. Like begets like: regret creates more regret, bitterness makes life more bitter, morbid guilt creates new reasons to feel guilty.
The way to break through the cycle of grief, or to undo old stuck grief energy, is to express thankfulness. When you feel stuck in grief, get new, positive energy moving. Remember the qualities that a person, place, time or event brought to you. Realize what the qualities of life are that made you happy, that you love, and give thanks that they exist. Celebrate the qualities with appreciation.
SPIRITUAL QUALITIES
Here are some of the spiritual qualities of life: Joy, harmony, beauty, humor, freedom, courage, patience, insight, kindness, innocence, appreciation, encouragement… Love. These are positive qualities that are eternal. Focus your mind on them with thankfulness and you will allow them to return to your life in new forms, new people, new things, new places and new experiences. Thankfulness is the antidote to being stuck in depressive grief.
AUDIO MEDITATION
This is an audio meditation expressing thanks for everything. Take time to just absorb the spirit of gratitude in it. Hopefully it will inspire you. Ride on the waves of thankfulness into Love and joy. Check out the Meditations and Wild Words pages of BeingLoved Web Site for expressions of Love and thankfulness to inspire you. And come back often as new audios are added regularly. Make it a habit to feed attitudes of gratitude for they are the life-blood of Love and happiness.
SHARE GRATITUDE WITH GOD
However you understand God talk with God and thank God for the "little things of life," like air, water, the earth, sight, hearing, birds, the sky... You get the idea. Overfamiliarity blinds and dulls us. Gratitude can reawaken our innate sense of mystery and wonder and wonder will feed our gratitude in return.
If God seems vague, or constrictive and threatening, you can concentrate on the qualities of Spirit you Love, for they are an integral part of existence and in truth stream out of the Source of Existence. Talk to God about these qualities, or talk to these qualities about God. (For example: ask the joy you love to help you make your concept of God happier. You can also go to the God Is Workshop and listen to the healing meditation there which can open Divine joy and beauty to you in a luminous and healing way.) Develop a communication of thankfulness to the Great Harmony and Source of Existence. Thank the God of the Universe for all of Life, starting with the miracle of your own existence.
For example, do you know that the light you see is not the light “out there” but has always been the light created in your own brain? We only see “brain light”. This is an astonishing miracle. Glance up at the sun. That blinding light stimulates rods and cones in the back of your eye that create nerve flow which goes to your brain that in some unknown way creates a facsimile of that light in consciousness. And it is this conscious facsimile—or sun blazing in brain light in your mind—that you see. Hey, it’s the same with sound, smell, taste and feeling… What a wonder! (And who are you that is experiencing all of this? Well, that’s another workshop.)
THANKFULNESS IS LOVE, FREEDOM AND CELEBRATION
EXERCISE THREE
EXPRESS GRATITUDE CREATIVELY
Make little rituals. Create special events to celebrate a person, place, animal or thing you love. Take time to sent little notes to someone you care about. Or send them an email expressing your appreciation. Draw little pictures. Buy a little gift and surprise them. It isn’t hard. Do things on a small but heart-felt scale. Little things make big differences to others. This makes life beautiful. You will find that your gratitude is contagious. Others will be attracted to you like bees to honey.
1. Write down who you are going to express gratitude towards.
2. Write down a very simple idea, something you think they will appreciate. Remember, never underestimate the power of small expressions of kindness and gratitude and how much they mean to others.
3. Do it and enjoy the results.
EXERCISE FOUR
BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR BODY
1. Talk to your body. Thank each organ. Thank your skin. Thank your muscles. Thank your hair, your ears, your nose, your lips. Thank your feet and hands. Your body is a community of intelligent cells. Each cell senses the energy you are creating in your system. Let your cells know you love and appreciate them. Really! You will be amazed at the response. Just keep it up. If you have some physical problems, you may very well experience "miraculous" healing.
2. Massage each part as you thank it, as if you were rubbing and petting an animal you love. Sense how much your body appreciates your expression of gratitude. It is amazingly healing and stimulates energetic flows through your meridians (the energy highways in your body/mind system). And it is this free, energetic flow that is the key of good health.
(The EFT workshop is especially good to heal negative inner programming on energetic levels so you can celebrate the essential innocence and goodness of every cell, organ and sensation of your beautiful body.)
EXERCISE FIVE
BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR SOUL
Your soul is the real you. It is all your experiences, your character, all your lessons, all your deepest loves and hates. It clothes your spirit and gives it color and qualities. It bridges the spirit and the earth and leaves the body at death. It can hold divergences together, and when it is whole the opposites meet in your soul and kiss.
It holds your unconscious programming as does your body. Work with your soul. That is what IHC is all about. Your soul loves to be free. Your soul loves to be courageous and creative. When your soul feels trapped and cut off from what it loves, it grieves and falls into the self-perpetuating painful dark. Thankfulness brings it out.
Through gratitude trama energy can become reversed from positive to negative in your body/mind system. Everyone suffers from negative trauma. The new energy psychology shows tremendous promise for turning these energy reversals around. (See EFT Workshop). It is important to know that appreciation and acceptance are the foundations our soul needs to overcome its fears and find the courage to turn negative energy back into its positive. That’s why thankfulness is so important. Be thankful for your soul, just as it is, no matter how wounded, or how guarded and afraid. It wilts from negative criticism and blooms in appreciation.
If you have a lot of inner defenses, tell your soul you are thankful it is trying to protect you from further pain, but that its methods need to be improved and you would now like to do just that. Speak very lovingly to your heart and soul and it will respond and began to open as you work with the tools given here to help.
Explore the different IHC workshops as each one gives powerful, proven tools to reprogram your body/mind system into gratitude, increased awareness and the joy of real Love. Find what works best for you and stick with it. As you exercise your body for health, so exercise your spirit/soul for increasing joy in the wonder of existence.
Below are links to other IHC workshops that can help you experience a growing freedom in your soul.
LIST OF IHC WORKSHOPS
HEALING IN LOVE
Become more open and free as you practice accepting limitless Love loving you. (With audio presentation).
MEDITATION & THE LOST ART OF PRAYER
A fusion of some of the best spiritual practices of East and West.
PHYSICAL HEALING IN CHRIST
Access the healing power of Christ for your body through a simple, powerful exercise using principles that have brought miraculous healing to many people.
HOL(Harmonious Opening in Love)
A simple way to open the spiritual centers of your body and take a bath in Love every day. Really great!
SELF INQUIRY
Arise and Shine! Discover the essence of your true self that is already free.
CREATIVE DANCE
Dance yourself open into healing Love and freedom,(including family dances and dances for those who suffer chronic pain).
YOUR LIFE PURPOSE
Clarify your life and start moving into living the most meaningful life you can live.
GOD IS MEDITATION
Celebrate the Divine qualities that inspire creativity and joyously compassionate living. An expansive and luminous experience. (With audio recording.)
I AM MEDITATION
A Simple but powerful way to unite your outward life with your deepest, truest Being. (With audio recording.)
EFT WORKSHOP
A powerful, proven method in the new field of "Energy Psychology" to undo deeply engrained negative thoughts and feelings in our body/mind energy system.
CREATIVITY:
How to activate your natural creative abilities and live an inspired life.
Gratitude is Love and Happiness. This realization alone can open door after door for you as you walk your path into freedom.
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