I don't know about you, but I am much more inclined to focus on the one time I have a stone in my shoe, and how it hurts, and what I can do about it, than I am inclined to think about all the days I walked free of pain with joy in my step.
The negativity of life, the problems, the trials and tribulations, sneak into our minds one after the other until they become comfortable and use up all the space. They create an ocean of fears, so there is little or no room left for gratitude.
Gratitude is medicine. I have discovered that it is the antidote of choice for a bad day (week, month, year...).
I wake up and my body doesn't feel so so good, perhaps. My mind is full of burdens, the weight of fear or anxiety. I might have a little negative back and forth with someone. Before I know it, before I'm really even awake, I'm living in my discontent, and not in my joy.
Here's what I know.
If I will sit down then and be still, and quietly start naming in my mind all the things I am grateful for, sooner or later a shift happens, and I start to feel alright again. Mighty alright.
It takes a lot of will and intention to do this. It is so easy to fall into the problem, to magnify what's wrong.
But I've found the truth of a universal law -- that we get more of what we focus upon. Focus upon problems, they get bigger. Focus upon gratitude, it gets bigger. Which do I want? Upon what will I choose to focus?
It is a daily, hourly, moment-to-moment choice.
There are so many people these days who are caught up in the fear and pain of economic fluctuations, political change, all the problems of this moment in time. The hypnosis is deep, and they are asleep and adrift in their fears.
Together, in their fear, the danger is that they will create fearful outcomes. (We get more of what we focus upon...)
What would happen if all of us, in the middle of these uncertainties and changes, were to focus on gratitude.
"Thank you life, God, nature, for all the good that will come from these changes. Those good things I can imagine right now might include.... (name them)."
At the very least, we'd have millions of people walking around and making daily decisions in a much more relaxed way. I don't know about you, but when I'm relaxed, I'm much better at making good decisions.
So on this day when we invite with its name -- "Thanksgiving" - everyone to name what we are grateful for, let us begin to speak back to the fears. Let us focus upon the light instead of the darkness, the good instead of the evil, the hope instead of the despair.
If it is true that we get more of what we focus upon, what do you choose for your focus today?
After all, this is the day we celebrate the Mighty Alrightness.
- The Acolyte
Comments