Good
day, and welcome to Thanksgiving week here in the
States! During this week
we have the opportunity to focus on the things in
life for which we're grateful, and
that gratitude can be shared with others more this
week than any other week.
We hope that you're able to share yours with people
you know and love.
Appreciation is like an insurance
policy. It has to be renewed every now and then.
-Dave
McIntyre
There is more hunger for love and
appreciation in this world than for bread.
-Mother
Teresa
Thanksgiving
Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest people;
but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the
gratitude. -E.P. Powell
Thanksgiving
Day comes, by statute, once a year;
to the honest person
it comes as frequently
as the heart of gratitude will allow.
-
A year ago, at a get-together of a dozen girlfriends from college,
I saw my old friend Therese Gibson. Therese had been one of
the fun girls at school; she'd had an easy laugh and had always
been up for an adventure. When she heard I was writing this
book, she told me about the daily gratitude ritual she and her
ninety-five-year-old father, Charlie, practice--they call it
"saying their thank-yous"--that keeps them smiling and
feeling good. Therese moved in with Charlie, who's still
sharp as a tack, at a bad time in both their lives.
Charlie's wife, Therese's mother, had just died, and Therese was
at the tail end of a painful divorce. Money was tight and
Therese says they were as glum as any two people could be.
But both of them had heard that gratitude was a great way to feel
better, so they decided to sit together for a few minutes each
morning before Therese headed off to work and tell each other the
three things they were grateful for in their lives.
"It was slow going in the beginning," Therese told
me. "The first time we did it, I was feeling so low I
had a hard time thinking of even one thing I was grateful
for." Finally, she looked around the room and saw a
vase she liked. She told Charlie, "I'm grateful for how
pretty that vase is." It sounded silly, but it was the
best she could do. Charlie wasn't any better at it, often
waiting for Therese to give him a clue about what to say.
But she and Charlie both noticed that even a thank-you for
something superficial had a good effect.
Soon, their
decision to focus on what was right in their lives began to pay
off. Both Therese and Charlie started to feel happier and
notice that more and more things were going their way. Even
their money situation improved. Three thank-yous became
five, became ten, and soon they had to stop listing the good
things in their lives long before they ran out of things to say,
or Therese would be late for work.
One day, they were feeling so light and happy after finishing
their lists that Charlie, who'd always liked the musical Oklahoma!,
started singing "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning."
Therese joined in. It was the perfect expression of how
being grateful made them feel. They added this song to their
ritual and now, saying their thank-yous and singing together has
become one of the highlights of their day.
What you're grateful for, you get more of. When you
appreciate the happiness and love you already experience, more
happiness and love come to you.
I've experienced myself how powerful gratitude is. After the
heartbreak I went through, a friend told me to write down five
things I was grateful for each night before I went to bed for
three weeks straight. I knew that psychologists say it takes
twenty-one days to change a habit, so I agreed. At first I
struggled, but my results kept me going. In fact, this
simple little exercise worked so well that I continued doing it
every night for the next three years, and over time, the pain in
my heart eased.
I suggest you try the gratitude exercise yourself. Every
night before you go to sleep, list five things that you're
grateful for that day, and notice how you feel when you wake up
the next morning.
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We often take so many things for granted. It is
important to learn about the art of looking for and
appreciating the real blessings of life, great and
small. There is an old saying that "a
donkey may carry a heavy load of sandlewood on its
back without ever knowing its value; all the donkey
knows is the weight of its load!" Often we,
too, may go through life, feeling only the weight of
circumstances, unable to know the precious nature of
life, simply because we may have a chronically
negative attitude. Cultivating the attitude of
gratitude can lead to self-appreciation and a more
positive mental perception of life.
Cicero once said, "There is no quality I would
rather have, or be thought to have, than
gratitude. It is not only the greatest virtue;
it is the mother of all the rest." The word
"gratitude" actually comes from the Latin gratis,
which means "pleasing" or
"thankful." And "-itude"
implies a quality or state of mind. So,
literally, gratitude is an attitude of pleasure and
joy and thanksgiving. . . .
The law of gratitude and thanksgiving is considered an
aspect of the universe that deals with the flow of
energy. That is, as you give out energy it
returns to you. This works in almost every
department of life. As one gives love, love can
be magnetized toward you. It may come back in a
different form, but it can return when it is given
without manipulation. This law of life is about
combining the expectations of the mind with the power
of the heart. You create a "mold" for
something good in your life, and with the power of
gratitude, good things continue to be drawn to you as
to a magnet.
"Ask and it shall be given you," says
Matthew 7:7, 8. As you work in this state of
thanksgiving you may find that money follows the same
law. Have you ever noticed that when we hoard
our resources, be it friendship, help, or affection,
the flow of the energy circuits often stops? But
as we give in love and appreciation, abundance flows
to us.
This can also be true with the law of
forgiveness. The lack of self-forgiveness in any
single area of life can fester like a poison within
and may bring anger, pain, and illness.
Psychologists and sociologists often infer that the
damage from childhood experiences can set patterns
into motion that may follow an adult through life,
being projected outward, unless forgiveness is
attained.
"Dwell not on the past," Eileen Caddy writes
in God Spoke to Me. "From this
moment onward you can be an entirely different person,
filled with love and understanding, ready with an
outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every
thought and deed."
Have you ever wondered what it might be like if we
couldn't appreciate the good things of life, such as
spirituality, music, art, drama, literature, friends,
dance, sports, nature, and all that makes life worth
living? Have you ever considered the possibility
that gratitude, thanksgiving, and the power of
forgiving could be as creative as other works achieved
in the world? Every person may not be great
according to the terms of the world, but we can be
grateful! Perhaps true appreciation is a
fantastic kind of creativity that can lead to
spiritual growth. Let us choose our lives with
love and gratitude. Let us use the laws of
thanksgiving and forgiving to bless ourselves and
others and make our lives more complete.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Life
does not have meaning through mere existence or
acquisition or
fun. The meaning of life is inherent
in the connections we
make to
others
through
honor and obligation.
Laura Schlessinger
Thanksgiving
There have been times in my life when it's been very difficult for
me even to consider giving thanks for anything. Not
impossible, mind you, but very, very difficult. After all,
in my mind it was much easier to focus on those things that were
not going well for me than the things that were going well--it was
much easier to dwell on the negative than to allow the positive to
sweep me up in all that it offered me. While I did try my
best to be positive and to be thankful, giving thanks was not
something that I did constantly.
Even when things have been going well for me, it's been very easy
to take them for granted and to neglect the giving of thanks in my
life. In fact, I think that the biggest obstacle that I face
when it comes to giving thanks is not the lack of thankful
feelings or things for which to be thankful, but simply neglect
due to the fact that my mind gets caught up in so many different
things. How can I stop to give thanks for my health if I
have so much work that has to be done tomorrow? How can I be
thankful for my job when I have so many papers to grade by next
week? Life does make it difficult at times to stay focused
on what's going right in our lives, doesn't it?
That said, though, once we realize that we do have such
difficulties, we should be able to shift our focus consciously; we
should be able to give ourselves some cues that help us to
remember just how important it is to be thankful. After all,
it's the thankful heart and spirit that draw to it more for which
to be thankful; it's when we regularly give thanks for our
blessings that we attract more and more similar elements into our
lives--more and more blessings.
Thanksgiving for me
really was a time of being thankful.
I think it is great for
people of all ages
to celebrate
the day with good people, good food, and football, but
I
hope in
the midst of our busy lives we have not forgotten the
importance of
observing
the real reason for
the holiday: to give thanks. -Matthias
Reightman
I find it a
very positive sign that in our society, we have set
up a day that is dedicated to giving thanks for all
that we have, and that this day has become one of
the most important holidays of our year. It
has become a time when families come together to
spend time and break bread, to share traditions and
love and hope, to recognize the abundance in their
lives and give thanks for that abundance. As
time goes on, however, we face a very real risk from
the people who want to turn the day into a day of
profit, a day of commercial excess in preparation
for the even stronger commercial excess of
Christmas, and it's important that if this holiday
is going to maintain its integrity, we stay focused
on its original intent and purpose.
Because unfortunately, that's what tends to happen
to gratitude in our lives: it becomes taking
things for granted. And very often we start to
set up a sort of hierarchy--this is something for
which I'm very grateful, but this over here doesn't
deserve as much gratitude, so I'm not quite as
thankful for it. Or we have thoughts such as,
"I'd be much more thankful for my home if I had
someone to share it with," or "I'd have
much more gratitude for my job if it were more
fulfilling."
But gratitude is like love--the more of it we feel,
the more capacity we cultivate in our hearts and
spirits to feel even more. And gratitude
becomes even stronger when we focus ourselves on
it--when we decide to become even better at our
jobs, or when we decide to make our homes the most
comfortable places they possibly can be--without
focusing on what we perceive as lack.
We remember the Pilgrims on
Thanksgiving Day, not so much for their
turkey dinner, but for the sheer faith that inspired them to give
thanks in
a year that saw nearly half their number die of sickness. Yet they prayed with thanksgiving.
-Ralph F. Wilson
This
Thanksgiving, I want to stay focused on the good
things in my life. I want to add to those good
things by keeping my mind on them, and continually
reminding myself of just how fortunate I am to have
them as part of my life. In this moment, for
example, it's 20 degrees outside, yet our home is
heated. I just ate breakfast, and I have light
to work with even though the sun hasn't yet
risen. I have a good computer to work on, I
have comfortable clothing, running water, a decent
job, chocolate, plenty of food to eat, music to
listen to, books to read, pretty things to look at
and to spark memories--in short, I have an awful lot
to be thankful for, and while I could do without
some of them more easily than others, this fact does
not mean that I should feel less thankful for those
things.
This Thanksgiving Day, make it a point to stop what
you're doing every now and then and take a quick
inventory. Look around yourself and bring into
your conscious mind the things that you have to be
thankful for, even the little things, and perhaps
even the people who in some ways make your life
difficult--even those people contribute something to
who we are, even if it's more patience or tolerance.
When you stop like this, though, you stop taking for
granted. You cease to be an unthinking member
of the flock who's flying along just because
everyone else is flying along, and you become an
individual who is reflecting on life and living, who
is recognizing and appreciating the blessings that
truly are a part of all of our lives.
I
am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. .
.
O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on
my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
Thanksgiving is
too important a day to allow ourselves to go through
it by rote. It's important because it serves
as a reminder to us that we do have much for which
to be thankful, and that gratitude for the things we
have and love brings even more of those things into
our lives--more love, more relationships, more
abundance--perhaps even more chocolate. If we
simply walk through the day without feeling,
though--without reminding ourselves of just how much
we need to feel thankful for elements of our lives
that make our lives special--then we're losing a
wonderful opportunity not just to feel those
feelings, but to share them and to help others
recognize their blessings, too.
Gestures
of kindness, courage, honesty, and love tend
to be small and quiet, and most of them are made by
ordinary human beings.But these acts create and sustain
a dense web of commitment that holds this planet and its
people together.The web is so resilient that it will
never be completely destroyed, because it is constructed
of human goodwill rather than bricks, money, or nationalism.
Sallirae Henderson
My Thanksgiving (excerpt)
Don Henley
. . . Now the trouble with you and me, my friend
Is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation
And I know that kind of notion--well, it just ain't cool
So send me back to Sunday school
Because I'm tired of waiting for reason to arrive
It's too long we've been living
These unexamined lives
I've got great expectations
I've got family and friends
I've got satisfying work
I've got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving. . . .
Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, and how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge
And I don't mind saying that I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime
Now I'm welcoming the fall
For every moment of joy
Every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving
For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving.
One
aspect of true community is that we respond to the needs of
another
within our own capabilities. Living in a community
consciously, responsibly,
and actively provides opportunities for growing naturally in
compassion.
Living compassionately in a community means that we care not
only about our
own advancement, materially as well as spiritually, but also
about the well-being
of all members, including those at the bottom. Those at
the so-called bottom
may be far more spiritually rich than those with whom we
aspire to consort. . . .
there is no limit to how we conceive the expanse of community,
only our own thinking.
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
I am
so GRATEFUL to be alive.
I am GRATEFUL for every gift and ability life affords me.
I am GRATEFUL for each and every experience I have had that has
made my life what it is today.
I am GRATEFUL for the lessons I have learned.
I am GRATEFUL for the opportunity to learn more.
I am GRATEFUL to be an expression of the divine life moving in me
and through me.
I am GRATEFUL to be awake.
I am GRATEFUL to have a consciousness.
I am GRATEFUL that my life can be a reflection of divine
consciousness at any given moment.
I am GRATEFUL that today is the only opportunity I need to live in
the fullness of joy, peace, and unlimited abundance.
Today, I will plant seeds of GRATITUDE in my life, knowing and
believing that they will bloom to the goodness and glory of the
Divine.
I am so GRATEFUL! For all I have received and all that is
yet to come!
™
