Gratitude is not selfish Not to put too fine a point on it, feeling grateful and expressing gratitude is not an act of selfishness. How can I express gratitude when so many people are suffering so horridly? Because feeling grateful for things in no way disempowers anyone else. All those people who are experiencing awful things and suffering do not have their lot in life made worse when you are thankful for things. I know how hard this is. But consciousness creates reality. When we get focused on all this awfulness around us, we discuss it, we rant about it, we feel terrible seeing it, we inadvertently energize it more. When we are not grateful for what we have, material or immaterial, we haven’t much to work with to gain more. Gratitude is abundance Saying thank you and FEELING thankful is empowering. When you receive genuine thanks, doesn’t it make you feel good? Giving it is equally as powerful as receiving it. We can be grateful for a truly infinite number of things. Intangibles like air, laughter, joy, and love are no less powerful than the tangibles like sunlight, clean drinking water, coffee, the grass beneath your feet. Saying thank you for material tangibles like iPhones, people, pets, and anything else you have or desire to have is no more powerful - and an equal when partaking of an abundant universe. Gratitude is more than saying Thank You Expressing gratitude, not just saying it but feeling it, creates an overall sense of satisfaction. This puts you in a place of abundance, rather than a place of lack and scarcity. As such, when you are working on creating something new - or improving the life you already have - this has you doing so from abundance rather than lack. Gratitude is a two-way street. Not only does it open you to more abundance, satisfaction, and fulfillment, but it also opens up anyone you give it to to the same. A genuine thank you presented to another person is appreciation that appreciates. This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool: Gratitude for what we already have – real, genuine thankfulness – empowers our conscious reality creation ability to acquire more things to be grateful for. Being grateful, and expressing it, is like any other muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. This week’s tool is a simple gratitude-building exercise. Once a day, either first in the morning or at the end of the day, sit down and WRITE OUT five (5) things that you are grateful for. They can be utterly simple and intangible or complex and tangible. Just write each one down. Take a moment to read each. Read it as “thank you for” or “I am grateful for”. Pause after reading it and let yourself FEEL it. Do this for a week – and see that you have many, many things for which to be grateful. Feel free to do this more often – and past the week of the Applied Guidance for Mindfulness tool usage. Author Website: https://mjblehart.com Email: author@mjblehart.com Instagram Twitter Facebook Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices