The Power of Gratitude
We often think of gratitude as a nice thing to feel because it’s always good to appreciate things. But there is a power that underlies gratitude that affects the very fabric of our entire life’s experience.
The deepest form of gratitude is directly connected to our experience of time and our ability to live in the now. Without it, we are forever caught in a past – future experience, which gravely compromises our ability to create a meaningful life.
There is far more to living in a state of gratitude than you may have realized. In fact, gratitude and appreciation are directly connected to how conscious we can be overall.
Living in the Now
Although our minds tend to be preoccupied with the past and the future much of the time, we don’t actually live there. The only place we can ever live is in the Now. No matter what you are experiencing, you are always experiencing it right now.
Even memory is experienced in the now. Each time you remember something from the past, your experience of remembering takes place in the now. It does not take place in the past. And our fantasies about the future likewise can only occur right now. Ironically, this actually proves that time doesn’t really exist! Life is only ever experienced in the exact moment of now.
The deepest form of gratitude can only occur in the now. It occurs in a place where there is literally no reference to past and future. This level of gratitude is the deepest form of sensuality because it means that you are sensing as much as possible in this infinite moment of now. It means that you are fully conscious of the space in which life is actually being experienced.
It means that you are fully conscious of your experience in the space in which you actually live, which is the space of now.
There is No Fear in the Space of Now
Fear requires two reference points in order to exist. It must reference past and future. Think for a moment about something that you are afraid of. You will note that there is a reference to the past, in terms of why you have that fear. And there is also a reference to the future in terms of something that might take place later on – even if that ‘later on’ is just one moment away.
If you remove the references to past and future, you will find that it is impossible to feel fear. Fear cannot exist in the purest moment of now.
Fear supplants consciousness. In fact, you could say that fear produces an absence of consciousness. When you are afraid, you are not fully present.
You can only feel gratitude to the extent that you can be fully present. So focusing on gratitude will encourage your consciousness to come back into the now. It brings you back into a state of happiness because it focuses all of your senses on what can be experienced right now. What is experienced right now is the essence of life itself, which always puts one into a state of peace and joy.
Gratitude Will Awaken You
Gratitude will awaken you to your life in the moment. And that is always positive. It forces you to look around and feel what you have right now. It quiets the mind and soothes the soul. It tells you that everything is all right. It forces you to open your senses and acknowledge the massive beauty that exists all around you.
Gratitude brings you back into yourself again. It reminds you that nothing matters except the life that you have right now. Because the life you have right now is truly all that you are capable of experiencing. Because now is the only place in which you live.
Gratitude wakes you up and makes you conscious. It makes you more interested in experiencing the wealth of life right now, and less interested in the distracted, thinking mind. It makes you feel more alive!
The Power to Create
Gratitude brings with it an awesome power to create. Some believe that gratitude can make you complacent because if you are satisfied with what is, you may lose your ambition and desire to create something more. But complacency is not the state of a creator. It is not your natural state. A creator is not a stagnant being.
Because gratitude makes you feel vital and alive, it also energizes you to create more of what you are grateful for. It causes you to feel even more engaged with life because you appreciate it so much.
Gratitude gives you the traction to create because it causes you to be fully present in the now. Because you are more conscious, you think more intelligently. Because you are more conscious, you are more open and receptive to inspiration and new ideas.
The traction to create also occurs because you are more grounded when in a state of gratitude. You are more awake and present in every area of your life. It causes you to think differently and in a more productive way.
Gratitude and Self-Esteem
Gratitude will absolutely lead to a higher state of self-esteem and self-love. It removes bitterness and regret. It is a state of self-acceptance, and the overall embrace of life as it exists right now.
It is impossible not to love yourself and your life when experiencing a state of gratitude. Ultimately, the feeling of gratitude is what results when you are truly experiencing your life right now without the unconscious elements of fear and regret.
Think about the negative things that go away when you are in a state of gratitude. Things like anger, self-judgement, self-recrimination, guilt, fear, despair, loneliness, stress, and an entire array of other debilitating negatives.
Now think about the numerous gifts that gratitude bestows upon you such as peace, happiness, inspiration, love, fulfillment, an enthusiasm for life, and a desire to create more of what you already enjoy. It puts you into harmony with your life right now. And that can only lead to even more goodness!
The Overall Benefits
In order to enjoy life, we have to be fully present. Enjoying life and appreciation go hand-in-hand. In order to enjoy life, you have to feel it. You have to open up to your life as it is right now.
That doesn’t mean that you are satisfied with things the way they are, as some sort of status-quo. It doesn’t refer to an unconscious comfort zone. Comfort zones are about resistance. They are not about appreciation. Appreciation awakens you. Comfort zones put you to sleep.
The larger benefit of gratitude is that it awakens you to your life’s essence. It makes you feel alive and grounded. It inspires you to create and to go for your dreams because you love life and feel that you deserve it. It causes you to live in full acceptance of yourself, and to then experience a natural desire to improve on that experience by becoming even more conscious.
Overall, gratitude places you on an upward spiral of consciousness to become the absolute best that you can be, and to live the life that you love!
Have you seen positive results in your life when you consciously engage in gratitude? Share your thoughts with me on this topic in the comments below!
Hello Saratoga and Telstar,
Thank you very much for this newsletter explaining so succinctly what gratitude is. I especially enjoyed it because a week ago I started a regimen for 21 days of saying 3 new things every morning that I am grateful for. The idea to do this came from a Ted Talks episode from Shawn Anchor who studied and did his thesis on happiness from Harvard ( I believe).
My, my. Synchronicity is running rampant. Yay!!
Vandya Hopkins
Vandya, that sounds like a pretty cool way to get started. I bet you’ll want to continue for even longer, but that may be the whole idea, right? So happy that I could support your efforts here.
Wonderful reading I feel much more positive after reading your email I know how lucky I am to have my family and friends I’m very grateful some things I miss like a relationship how ever I think of what I have achieved with God’s love and light I know that love and happiness to make my life complete will come so thankyou for your love and inspiration thankyou so.much
You’re very welcome, Veronica. May you experience all the love and happiness you need!
I have been living a conscious life of gratitude daily for over 15 years now. It makes me a giving person and I send out love to those I meet. Grocery store clerks, people young and old in the street, neighbours, deserve and get smiles and positive comments as I express my gratitude to them. And before I sleep I thank my creator for my day which I have lived to my fullest ability. My life is good.
That’s just beautiful, Cynthia! You sound like an Earth angel. Thank you for spreading more love around our world. 🙂
With gratitude I am now more aware and appreciative of all that I have… Family, friends, material and non-material things and think less of all that I have lost and will not have again.
Thanks for directing my thoughts to the “now” and the help to somewhat overcome fear.
I’m grateful.
Hedda, you are so right. Gratitude definitely makes you more aware and conscious of the positive things, which is why it leads to greater happiness and fulfillment.
I’m so glad I can help you do even more of this. Being more in the ‘now’ is a great secret to fulfillment and happiness!
Dear Saratoga,
Thank you for this awesome reminder to maintain a present state of gratitude. I do have a tendency to dwell on what wasn’t, or choices I could or should have made in the past. Intellectually I understand that living that way with so much of the past in my present consciousness does not allow the possibility of a bright and creative future. I understand that I cannot undo what was and that I did the best I could at the time. However, I realize that these kinds of thoughts contribute to a debilitating state of “unconsciousness” and are not conducive to my evolution as a creator and in living my true purpose while I’m here. It is difficult for me to break with a difficult past but I don’t want to hold myself back any longer. I am extremely grateful and want to integrate that experience into a moment-to-moment existence.
So I am most grateful to you for this most timeless message! Your thoughts and inspiration are always taken to heart. Always true.
With love and blessings,
Leigh
Leigh, one way to think about this is to look at your consciousness and your mind as being space. If you fill up that space with the past (which you cannot change), then there is no room for something better. If your past was unpleasant, then that’s not a good thing to put in that space, since it will not change to a positive because it can’t.
That’s why it only makes sense to let it go. The place for peace and happiness is in the now, and in what you want to create from this point forward.
SARATOGA, this article is profound. For years I designed what I would call a daily ritual – including prayer, determining each day’s task based my numerological chartings, as well as expressing at least one thing for which I am grateful. However, ever so often, I get so caught up in certain tasks that for weeks or even a couple months I would fail to meet up with my helpers in these quiet hours upon arising.
Two days ago, yes, after I somehow got lost in one such activity, with no clear way out, I decided to return to this most fulfilling morning activity; that, sit down in that sacred space, even if just to exhale. It was when I came to writing the one thing for which I was grateful, I found peace again. In fact, I was grateful to be guided back to this devotional moment in time, and even asked for help to never start any day without spending such precious moments – no matter how brief.
And, here, two days later, your blog, influenced by your conversation with Mikhail. PRICELESS!!!
No matter what is happening around me, I am always comforted and assured when I call upon the beings who guide me. They are my escape. Oh, the comfort they dispense!!!
You raised gratitude to a whole new level for me. It is a perpetual state of being.
Thank you Saratoga.
MY DEEPEST GRATITUDE TO MIKHAIL.
Monica, you really grasped the most important point about a deeper level of gratitude. That it is a perpetual state of being that can evolve into higher and higher levels of experience and consciousness. We can’t even imagine what might be possible with this. It’s so great how Telstar opens these new doors into a much bigger universe of experience.
And I agree with you that a sacred morning ritual is indispensable. Lots of love to you! 🙂
Saratoga, telling me that I can allow myself to evolve into higher and higher levels of consciousness, living in the perpetual state, please, give it to me gently. That’s going to be quite a ride:)
Totally impressive. This thing, this whole thing with gratitude runs deeper than anyone could imagine, at least that revelation is so in my case. Like a whole new world unfolding, yet so simple, in a priceless accessible way, and nothing can take it away (except perhaps a state, temporarily) – can only say that I wish I’d latched on to this earlier!
And this is not a negative draining regret, more like the amazement, or joy, of finding something endlessly invaluable underfoot, powerful and rewarding, there all along but previously overlooked or ignored in relation to it’s importance. (You know, that crumbling old trap of thinking things have to be somehow “complicated” or dressed in manipulated layers of applied finesse and polish, and in keeping with this, more “out there” than “in here”, in order to be real and effective, having impact.)
And I suspect the discovery process, in relation to this, only deepens over time…
So, though words cannot express….thank you!
Leslie, this is what is so amazing to me about this. It’s like discovering, as you said, a treasure that is right underfoot. I love what you expressed here!
And, yes, I do think it is an endless process of discovery. I think we would all be amazed at how deep this can really go over time. What a great thing to explore. I think there is truly untold wealth here. 🙂
I love your emotional space, Leslie. I could not have expressed your joy of finding this treasure in a more profound way.
Hello Saratoga. I feel so much gratitude for all the love, inspiration and assistance that I am receiving from the divine universe. I am so grateful for the continually increasing level of clarity I experience around my life purpose. Connecting with this gratitude brings such a wonderful feeling of peace and contentment, deeply inspiring me to bring beauty, happiness and tranquility into this world by any means possible.
Thank you!
Avalon, this deeper level of gratitude definitely brings a whole new level of peace with it.
I also agree that it really contributes to one’s life purpose, because it frees up your consciousness for more inspiration and creativity. A deeper level of gratitude and consciousness is so fulfilling! I think it definitely motivates one to be more giving to others, in terms of fulfilling that life’s purpose.
Hi Saratoga,
Wow.. this is really something. I read this yesterday, and i felt that i needed to allow this information to seep or percolate into my being. It is just so profound. It feels like this information is a true game changer. It doesn’t really feel like mental information, it feels like taking it in deeply causes a huge dimensional shift. Or maybe it is a step, a huge step towards the infinite. It is so exciting that you could impart this information to us. It feels like we are all moving into a new place, that you could even write and communicate this information to all of us.
Thank you Saratoga. I am most grateful.
Kathleen
Thank you very much. I learned a lot. More power
Your insight is truly appreciated, the most profound words I’ve found in years. Thank you! Your words touched me to the core. I felt the truth in them and knowing that I will continue to be greatful. God Bless You.
You have such a gift for re-teaching me what I already know just when I need you to! Thank you for your website and the beautiful graphics to accompany your words. You put it all together for me when I need a place to synchronize myself, especially when my consciousness is distracted. I am especially glad you made me aware of Comfort Zones. I will continue to understand my conflicts more as I listen to your mindful kindness toward yourself. My conflict is usually with my Comfort Zone instead of Gratitude,but I didn’t know it. Thank you for helping me live MY NOW instead of getting pulled into someone else’s Uncomfortable Zone. It is very hard to seperate from Uncomfortable People I still love. Can you give me some help with how Gratitude NOW might mean letting people go?