It used to be hard for me to “practice gratitude”.
It never quite “worked” for me. I never got the deep shift in perspective everyone talks about, I never suddenly felt abundant with what I already have.
I was practicing gratitude as a transaction, looking for what I could get out of it.
I was always waiting for the reward, the payoff.
It’s not that practicing gratitude doesn’t work, or that it works for some and not for others. It’s just that gratitude doesn’t work like that. It’s not currency.
Gratitude is an offering.
It’s a gift.
It’s generosity.
To or for whom, you might ask?
That’s up to you. It just has to be to something greater than yourself. Giving to an equal is lovely, but it keeps it at the transaction level.
Go UP a level, or several, for the energy to multiply exponentially.
It MUST multiply if you go UP to something greater than yourself, because this level is already exponentially larger than you.
If you’re spiritually inclined, maybe it’s to God. If you prefer to call it the Universe, then it’s that. Or maybe it’s just to the part of yourself that is greater than our daily egoism. Maybe it’s to humanity.
The point is that no matter your belief or psychological structure, there’s is something greater than yourself.
Even if it’s just life itself.
They say you get what you give, you reap what you sow. Practicing gratitude is a deliberate way to give more to everything. Offering UP multiplies it exponentially.
Also, you can’t demand or expect it to come back immediately, or in the form you want. It WILL come back to you, in the moment and form that is best for you.
Probably when you least expect it.
