Gratitude is a word many of us think we understand, we have
heard our parents or some other adults at some point in our lives talk about
how we should be grateful for the things we have or we’ve heard them talking
about how so and so is ungrateful and doesn’t deserve the things they have. But often we had no idea what it meant to be
grateful. We just knew we weren’t getting what we wanted and sometime we didn’t
always get the things we needed.
In either of those contexts the words gratitude and grateful
are being used with a tinge of guilt added to them. That tinge of guilt is thrown in to remind us
to stop asking our parents for things they don’t believe they can afford to
provide for us or in some cases for things they really couldn’t provide.
I suppose you are wondering how this fits into my magick
practices. For me gratitude is something I had only halfheartedly included
into my spiritual practices as an adult. I thought if I said “thank you” for
the blessings in my life that would be enough. The problem with that is I rarely
was able to see anything in my life as a blessing. I had become so accustomed to
not receiving the things I wanted that I never really believed what I had was
anything I should be grateful for.
I spent most of my time bitching and moaning about how I was
just barely surviving financially, or how my job just sucked because of a variety
of reasons. I never seemed to be able to find anything to be grateful for or
about.
I spent a great deal of time saying “thank you” for things I
didn’t want and for situations that were sometimes unhealthy for me simply because I was told that if you
weren’t grateful for the survival style life I was living then somehow things
would just get worse and I sure didn’t want that.
I don’t remember where or even when I started seeing
gratitude come up in my magickal studies. I do remember that I saw it mentioned
in nearly every book I picked up to read and in every reading I received (didn’t
matter the divination method).
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| The face of ungratefulness |
Yes, there were great descriptions in the books I read, from
books on spell craft by Laurie Cabot and other magickal authors to books and radio programs by Louise Hay,Wayne Dyer
or books and CD’s from Esther and Jerry Hicks (Abraham). I had all but given up
on the idea that my life could be filled with anything but the very basics for
survival and mediocrity.
I still thought I was
being grateful. I had no idea what it really meant to be grateful.
After hearing about “The Secret” for over two years and
ignoring the nudge I was receiving from the Universe, I finally broke down and
bought the book and the movie. I remember watching the movie and feeling
something inside me shift. I suddenly understood that just saying “thank you”
isn’t enough if you don’t really like or want the people, things, and experiences
you currently have in your life.
I also learned that you need to “feel” gratitude and being
grateful isn’t just an intellectual process. This was a new concept to me. I hadn’t really
felt grateful for anything since I was a small child and I really wasn’t sure
what I was remembering as the feeling of gratitude was really gratitude.
I tried feeling gratitude for things I didn’t have and wasn’t
experiencing in an attempt to make my life seem more tolerable. Looking back it
really wasn’t that bad, I was just in a really screwed up place. What I didn't understand was that this doesn't really work unless you can find even a tiny portion of your experience that you are truly tankful for and really feel it.. even if it is something as tiny (or as big) as being glad you have a place out of the weather to sleep for the night.
Nothing worked… the Vision Board I created was fruitless,
the spells I cast didn’t work, the never ending mantra of ”I am grateful for my job” only seemed to make my job steadily grow
worse.
I finally gave up on all of it…. I gave up on me… I nearly
gave up my life…
I ended up having an appendicitis attack, quit my job and
stayed home for six months. I was in counseling and ended up taking
antidepressants to get me through the first couple of months.
During this time I started my spiritual search again. I wasn’t
sure what I was looking for, and I wasn’t sure I’d find it…. I hadn’t felt a
connection to divinity in over five years.
I watched “The Secret” again and was reminded that it hadn’t
answered my questions in the past and still didn’t hold the answers I was
looking for. I think it was because I had received the message in its fullest
the first time and it was time to look deeper. I read some books by the authors
mentioned in the movie and started to understand a lot better what this elusive
emotion, gratitude, might really be.
I began to recognize that there were thing I used to take
for granted in my life that I really enjoyed and these things made me feel a
certain type of happiness… I took notice of these things and pretty soon I
understood this feeling was gratitude and when I felt this emotion, things seem
to magickally happen the way I wanted it to. I also noticed that when I allowed
myself to fall back into the old patterns of not recognizing this feeling of
gratitude, then things just seemed to go all wrong.
I then found out that the creator (Rhonda Bryne) of “The
Secret” had written a third book (The Magic) in the series and since I had read
the first two; I figured I might as well read the third. Well… I did… and I am
currently working the exercises in the book. I am halfway through the recommended
28 day time frame … and I am finding that I now experience gratitude on a daily
basis and it has become more common for me to feel gratitude than it is for me
to feel the ungrateful, deprived, judgmental and desperate feelings that used
to be the normal feelings I experienced.
I don’t know if the shift in the way I experience life
really has anything to do with “The Magic” or if it was just time for all those
ideas, spells, affirmations and exercises from the past to come to fruition. I
tend to think it is all of the above, but more importantly I believe it was my
deep desire to actually experience something that would change my life by
allowing me to be happy right where I’m at.. Ultimately allowing me to open up
and allow more people, experiences and things in my life to enhance my feelings
of gratefulness…. right where I’m at…
Have a Wicked Good Day!
Molly
