Gratitude: The Great Connector
Make a conscious effort to attach gratitude to everything that you see, hear, feel, and do. When you do, you will be surprised at how much there is to be grateful for.
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There is a process that can bridge the gap between where you are, and where you are going. That process is gratitude. Gratitude has been defined as the quality of being thankful, appreciative, or beholden. It helps you to understand the graces and gifts which have been bestowed on you, helps you appreciate the little things in life, and lets others know that you are not taking them for granted.
When it comes to being a good person, gratitude is something you want in your process toolbox. Most of us are grateful for those people, possessions, and events in our lives, some of which are happening, and others which have already occurred. This is what we might call retroactive gratitude. We are expressing our thankfulness, albeit it after the fact.
I am focusing on a different type of gratitude, a process I refer to as proactive global gratitude (proactive because it is self-initiating; global because it attaches itself to everything). As opposed to being an expression of thankfulness and appreciation for something we have already experienced, proactive global gratitude does not require a person, place, or wonderful event to be expressed. Retroactive gratitude waits for something to be grateful for, while proactive gratitude is always available for us.
Proactive global gratitude occurs because we are making a conscious effort to be grateful for all the moments of our life. It’s a process that is constantly operating, so what occurs in the external world is received, and absorbed internally, finding its way into an environment which is already steeped in gratitude.
You can be grateful when you get what you want. However, there is no power in that, and the energy source is short-lived. Those who elect to attach gratitude to every part of your journey invite a new energy source into your life that binds your processes with all that lives, and all that is.
The Advanced Scout And The Grateful Journey
When proactive global gratitude exists routinely inside of you, it performs as an advanced scout, moving outward, and redefining everything that touches you. Not only can it appreciate positive energy, but it also possesses the ability to transform negative energy into a positive energy source. If proactive gratitude is part of your routine life journey, and being expressed moment by moment in your life, it becomes a natural defense that reduces the potential for negative charges to impact your life.
So, how do you move from a destination type of gratitude, to gratitude that is journey-oriented?
Break every little endeavor down into the little process, those seemingly minute moments, that are involved in it. Be grateful for all of them, and for now, consciously keep that process going. Identify all the little positives, and tell yourself how wonderful they are.
As with all our processes, given the gift of time and commitment, you will begin to see proactive global gratitude become part of your life. You start this way to alter the way you think, from retroactive gratitude to proactive global gratitude. Make a conscious effort to attach gratitude to everything that you see, hear, feel, and do. When you do, you will be surprised at how much there is to be grateful for.
Gratitude is the bridge between what you thought was not, and what can be. You can, routinely, throughout your day, call upon this energy, and apply it to every circumstance in your life. The internal balance between your physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual talents will soar. The more positive energy that can be applied to these attributes, the more efficient, fulfilled, and happy you will become. Rejoice in what you have and who you are, always. Your life on the inside will turn a wonderful corner. Be grateful for all of it, all the time!
Let gratitude exist with every breath you take to keep the positive flow of energy uninterrupted. Gratitude will help you remove boundaries and limitations that can impair your movement to higher states of consciousness and emotional fulfillment. Internally thriving, always in the moment, proactive global gratitude unites you more efficiently with life’s natural flow, and on the grand scale, with the universe.
Faust A. Ruggiero is a published research author, clinical trainer, and a therapist who has worked in settings that have included clinics for deaf children, prisons, nursing homes, substance abuse centers, inpatient facilities, major corporations, and as the President of the Community Psychological Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania.
