Physician Healer
The Power of Feeling Grateful
Before you read on, go grab your journal or get a piece of paper and grab a pen. Write 1 through 10 on the page and without thinking too deeply, list 10 things you are grateful for. Do this right now. Right now. It could be something you feel, something you received, something you thought about, something you have, some new skill you signed up to learn or you have committed to start. Read each one out loud. Then, read each one slowly and take 1 or 2 minutes to really feel each thought. Close your eyes if that helps you remove external distractions.
How did the gratitude exercise make you feel? How are you feeling this moment? Write that down below the 10 gratitudes. This positive feeling is always available for you at any time. If your mind feels good, chances are your body feels good also since the body is a faithful servant of the mind. Remember that the mind cannot entertain both positive and negative thoughts at the same time.
The above gratitude exercise also reminds us that we can choose to look at the glass as half full or half empty. There is a saying I just came across that simply states that nothing is bad or good other than our thinking makes it so. Think about this. It is true. Whatever we see in out external world “just is.” Events are not purposefully happening around us to do us in. If that is our interpretation of what’s going on, then we are choosing to label things as such. What is more detrimental, however, is that in this situation, we are choosing to be victims instead of the magnificent creators of our lives.
Fortunately, we can change this by deciding we deserve more being the unlimited spirited energy that we are. We just need to plant the seed, water it, nourish it with attention andcare and provide the right conditions and through patience, that seed will germinate and grow into a glorious tree. Change begins on the inside, never the outside. We first must free ourselves from what we observe as the current situation and decide to believe in the truth of what we desire, hold that vision and then what we want will manifest itself through us.
The technique of feeling and expressing gratitude has been known across cultures for a long time to be highly effective not only in matters of achieving wealth, winning a game, scoring high on an exam, inviting a relationship or just elevating our mood, but also to transform our “dis-ease” into wellness. Everyday, we are made aware of examples of individuals less fortunate than we are and in fact, many of us have experienced times when we just complain incessantly about how terrible we feel only to discover that the next story talks about someone who was blinded by an accident and has lost both arms and legs talking about appreciation for life with complete inspiration. How do we feel then? Did knowing that affect us in any way? Did it suddenly alter our perspective in any way?
Gratitude is a powerful healing tool and works by upgrading our perception of every situation. It is always easy to feel grateful when we find ourselves in a good place but gratitude wields its most powerful influence when we feel that we are not in a good place mentally and/or physically. It is natural for many of us to reject the idea of feeling grateful when our mind is consumed with where we expect and want the body to be. But, we must remember that if we are aiming to change the current situation to transform the future, doesn’t it make sense to put out to the universe everything that brings a deep sense of gratitude right now? It is known that feeling grateful attracts and brings forth more to be grateful for in our lives.
Involving emotion into what we are grateful for serves to effectively anchor that in our mind and displaces the egoic mental chatter. When done consistently over time, our health inevitably becomes transformed. Remember that change occurs when we take ourselves out of the trap of the current situation and make a decision to focus on what we really want and how we truly want to feel. The current situation never defines our future unless we allow it. And, it is as easy as deciding to make a different choice.
So, before heading off to bed this evening, read over the 10 you listed at the beginning of this blog and immerse in each for a minute or 2 in emotion and truly feel deeply grateful. Then, write out another 10 things you are grateful for and again, spend a minute or 2 and get emotionally involved with each of them. Another helpful suggestion to elevate your mind-body-energy connection to the next level is to read off the gratitudes with emotion using eye contact with yourself in front of the mirror. There is nothing more powerful than messaging yourself directly.
I’ve been asked frequently if I were to choose 2 activities to be the most important tools for feeling and living well everyday, what would they be. They are meditation and gratitude journaling. Meditation serves to clear out space in the mind to make healing energy available and gratitude journaling allows the positives to displace the implanted negative stories and patterns of the past in the mind. When done consistently and regularly, the body begins to change and steps up to the challenge, as the body indiscriminately follows whatever the mind tells it. Initially, the familiar seems to have the monopoly, but with time, when we focus more heavily on what we want and avoid feeling what we don’t want, what we pay attention to gets stronger and what we ignore fades over time from neglect. Persistence is the key to winning.
Meditation and Relaxation
1) Find a quiet place and sit comfortably. Close your eyes gently and breathe in slowly through the nose and track the breath down to the belly (5-7 seconds), then exhale slowly through the mouth (5-7 seconds). Repeat at least 2 more times.
2) Place your list of 20 gratitudes in front of you and turn each one into intentional statements by putting a “why” or “how” in front of the sentence and “that I didn’t notice before” at the end of the sentence. For example, if your gratitude is,
“I am so grateful for my wonderful family,”
the intentional statement would be,
“How am I so grateful for my wonderful family that I didn’t notice before?”
3) Today, you will use both the list of gratitudes and the intentional gratitudes as your words to guide your Meridian meditation in this session. Feel free to choose the Meridian points you want to use today or go with the following:
—Hand blade, staying with one hand or alternate between both
—Chest points, one or both sides
—Eyebrow point, one or both sides
—Corner of the eye, one or both sides
—Under the eye, one or both sides
—Under the nose
—Under the lower lip
—Return to the chest point
(Feel free to repeat any of the above points)
4) You can now continue on with your eyes closed and sit quietly in continued reflection for 30 to 45 minutes, then return to 1) to finish off with breathing exercises.
5) If you’re doing this shortly after waking in the morning, remember to take a few minutes to read or listen to something new, exercise/stretch and then get ready for the rest of the day. If this is near bedtime for you, you can choose to just go to bed.
Remember that feeling deeply grateful presents you with the power to shift your state of mind when you are feeling down or in pain. Consistently doing so can have the power to transform you permanently.
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Thank you for reading! May you all receive much to be grateful for everyday! 🌻
With Love and Gratitude🙌♥️
Dr. Celeste Amaya
