Why gratitude may not be working for you
You’ve all heard it before: To create more abundance in our life, cultivating gratitude for what we already have is key.
I believe this is true.
But for many grateful people who make it a daily (perhaps many times a day) practice to express gratitude for what they have and what they experience find that more abundance eludes them.
For some, frustration is so great they’ve decided all this Law of Attraction stuff is a bunch of huey and — while they are grateful – they don’t give much thought to how it may or may not improve their lot in life or in their work.
I think this is because their “vibe” is all kinked up. Their circuits have gone all haywire, such that their inherent magnetic ability to attract the clients and business they want is flowing in the wrong direction.
Yesterday I attended a Manifestation Workshop. The facilitator gave a short talk on what Manifestation is, including action steps to deliberately creating what you want in your life or work.
One of the action steps was to cultivate and practice an attitude of gratitude.
In this context, the facilitator asked whether each of us believed we were abundant. One participant mentioned that she did AND she didn’t; she was ambivalent.
The facilitator offered the thought that if we compared ourselves to Kings who lived even a few hundred years ago, we are far more wealthy and abundant than they. For example, we can drive a chariot at speeds of over a hundred miles per hour without a horse and we can travel to virtually any place on Earth within a day’s span.
These comparisons are accurate. We are wealthier than past civilizations.
And yet, I contend comparisons like this are the very reason why the Gratitude Vide is often kinked.
Remember when a parent told you to eat everything on your plate because there were children in Africa who were starving?
Or, perhaps you were repeatedly exposed to images of the children with bloated stomachs that you could prevent from malnutrition with just 5 cents a day, a sum you earn in 10 minutes that takes a father in the far reaches of China 2 weeks to make?
How did these messages make you feel?
Grateful?
Not likely.
Or, if they did, the gratitude was mixed up with shame and/or guilt because your bounty meant that someone else lacked. Your abundance meant someone else went without.
How can feelings of joy and abundance flow freely and without restraint when guilt and shame are constant companions?
I was even reading a Law of Attraction Coach’s blog offer the advice to “Acknowledge that some people don’t even have half of what you do.”
In what way is that conducive to an attitude of gratitude? It’s no wonder people have such a challenge with abundance and an abundance mentality.
Pure, untainted gratitude might go something like this:
“I am SO grateful for these strawberries I’m eating. They are SO sweet and delicious. I love the soft texture and slight crunchiness of the little seeds as I bite down. It’s the taste of summer and it’s amazing. What a special treat.”
This is a simple example, but the point is that gratitude for the strawberry has nothing to do with someone else not enjoying a strawberry. Pure gratitude has to do with what’s happening in the moment, and is grounded in the belief that whatever joy you have or are experiencing is inherently yours. What others have or don’t have doesn’t enter the equation.
Religions of the world teach prayer as a way to invoke the emotion of gratitude. But even prayer can be rendered useless if it is simply rote repetition or performed out of a sense of obligation. Where’s the joy in that?
Besides, the notion that for one person to have abundance another has to have lack is an illusion.
I think of Michael Talbot’s argument for a holographic model of The Universe. In this model, all that exists in the world is inexhaustible and cannot be depleted – even when it is divided.
Discussion of this is clearly beyond the scope of this short article, but an example is if a hologram of a flower is cut in half, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the flower.
In turn, if each of the two halves are themselves cut in half, each of the resultant parts will possess the same information as the original whole. They themselves are whole, intact versions of the original.
According to Michael Talbot, our entire Universe (and everything in it) is a hologram.
Assuming this is true, it’s absurd the whole notion that to be grateful is to acknowledge that others go without as a direct consequence of us NOT going without.
Concern for others and assisting them as we are able are important — essential, even. But, being grateful is being grateful without condition or justification or contingencies.
And only then, free of binding shackles of obligation or guilt or shame, can we allow abundance to flow to us unencumbered with senseless reasonings and worry.
Tshombe, this is brilliant.
You are absolutely right that garnering gratitude just because someone else is “less than” is not pure gratitude.
You gave a fine examples for the strawberries. Many will say, these strawberries are delicious but that is the extent of their gratitude. Gratitude is about going below the first layer and really getting to where what you are grateful for connects with all that is.
That is where you connect with all that is.
With much love to you,
Iyabo
.-= Iyabo Asani, The Inner Genius Coach´s last blog ..Inspiration from Will Smith =-.
@Iyabo Asani, The Inner Genius Coach, What a great comment, Iyabo. Thank you! And, what you are saying about “going below the first layer” connects with your own well-articulated concept of experiencing “Heart-Swell” (http://www.authenticchangecoach.com/experience-heart-swell).