“my accidental pilgrimage toward a personal discovery at the core of gratitude” by j.stone

i think of gratitude as one of the most important “spirit tools” we have to work with! gratitude has the power to change how we process each and every event in our life, because gratitude opens and elevates our perception of any circumstance.

by honoring gratitude we are also honoring all that is: we are living in a way that our “gratitude energy” won’t allow any circumstance the power to devastate our mind or our soul, because gratitude will always show us a “higher” alternative.

once gratitude is ingrained in our heart as well as our mind and our spirit, we no longer have room to accommodate fear or greed or misery or revenge or arrogance~and that’s a remarkable trade-off! when one lives with gratitude as the foundation of every experience, a richer more adventurous life emerges: one full of hope and opportunity, faith and courage.

i think of gratitude as this awesome “reality check” which at times has to smack me upside the head before i take notice, before i remember to take a personal inventory of my incredible life. i’ve also noticed how gratefulness sometimes needs outside stimulation to re-activate itself in my head, or my heart. this is when i am not paying close enough attention to the gifts- when external information has to remind me of the life full of gifts, which i embrace.

what if there were a way to measure “gross national gratitude” in every country on the planet~ it would be so interesting to be able to determine “regions of gratitude” or what makes one geographical territory more or less grateful than another… i think human interaction with nature is a vital part of being in touch with gratitude. i also think we are in need of much more nourishment from nature that few of us allow ourselves anymore. when we lose touch with our natural environment, i think our “gratitude energy” suffers.

the thing i’ve noticed through my travels to remote locations inside and outside the u.s., is that whatever tribe or group or community or person or village has the least, but lives the closest to nature, these are the souls who seem to be the most grateful… grateful to be alive, to love and be loved, to feel safe and to know that what they do matters. the “spirit awareness” of people who have the most limited material resources have taught me the most about gratitude. “be grateful for every circumstance presented” i’ve heard these words echoed time and again as i’ve been shown or told or reminded of this powerfully beautiful lesson:

“one must embrace adversity and go through it, in order to discover the gift…” the ability to embrace adversity as a gift~ might this be the soul of gratitude?

thank you for reading my thoughts on gratitude. love, jstone