Gratitude and the Law of Attraction: 3 Ways To Appreciate What You Have

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Gratitude or thankfulness is a human quality that is one of our higher emotions and therefore one which has a high vibration and high energy. Yet it is often the ingredient left out of many law of attraction instruction books which focus on visualisations and mantras over and above energy and vibration.

But gratitude and the law of attraction go hand in hand and the more gratitude you express for the things you already have, the greater and faster will be your manifesting of other things you desire.

The Universal Response to Gratitude

The universal response to gratitude is one of respect and love in recognition of the emotional state of the person who is grateful. I’ll tell you a personal story which illustrates this.

I have a 12-year old daughter who I fostered from the age of 6 and then applied for and received a special guardianship for her when she was 9. She and her sister are now with me long-term (we think of it as forever) and for the last 6 years I have been teaching my daughter to understand her emotional journey so that she can come to terms with some of the traumas in her past.

One of the things we talk about is being grateful for the things you already have, and I tell her that this attitude and state of mind is a beneficial one, because it leads to positive energies which will lead to more positive energy.

We often play a game in the car of saying what we are grateful for in that moment, whether it is the weather, the freedom to explore or the food we ate that morning. It usually puts us all in the good mood and we can feel our vibrations rising along with our feeling of happiness.

One evening not too long ago, I tucked my daughter into bed and settled down to do some writing. I could hear her moving about upstairs for over half an hour and eventually called up to her to ‘go to bed’ in one of my more stern voices, since it was late. A few minutes later it all went quiet and after a couple of hours, I made my own way upstairs to bed myself.

I was greeted with the following note:

Now I sometimes get these notes on the stairs or on the landing outside my door when she wants to apologise for something – (such as not going to bed properly) or other behavioural things, but this time, I was more than a little surprised to see the next note:

When I read the note, tears welled up in my eyes and I was filled with an unconditional love which made me cry. It was such a beautiful moment, expressed in her on inimitable way, that my heart overflowed with love and appreciation back.

Now the wording and spelling may not be perfect but she is only 12 and who cares about grammar when there is such an obvious and pure emotional intent. The words are not important, but the feeling is obvious and unmistakable.

This is the same with the universe and its own response to outpourings of gratitude and pure emotions. The words become unimportant but the emotional response is overwhelmingly positive and loving.

The universe will send more love and more things to be grateful for if you express your gratitude to it.

Gratitude encourages and creates abundance in all areas of your life. When you feel gratitude for something, you are thankful that this item, person or situation has come into your life and you can see that your life is better for it.

You have a positive optimism that exists around the item, that creates feelings of contentment and joy. Since theses are emotions with higher emotional and vibrational energy, they attract other energy of the same vibration.

The opposite of gratitude is a state of discontentment, complaining and a feeling that things are never enough or not good enough. If you are thinking thoughts along these lines, moaning that you don’t have enough money or that people always treat you a certain way, or that your house is too small…..etc, etc., etc, then your vibrational state is very low.

At this level, you will only be able to attract more energy of the same vibration, so the whole situation becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and you will fall further into a state of complaint.

You feel cheated or hard done by and guess what? The universe brings you circumstances that will reflect your thinking.

If you feel elated and grateful for every penny you have, guess what? The universe brings you more of that and your joy and abundance increases.

There’s a wonderful children’s story called “A Squash And A Squeeze” by Julia Donaldson (author of “The Gruffalo” and “Room on the Broom“) in which as little old lady moans about how small her house is and pleads with ‘the wise old man’ to help her. He tells her to take in her hen, goat, pig and finally her cow and let them into her house.

As each animal enters the house and causes mayhem, the house seems to shrink even further in the old lady’s eyes until she can stand it no longer.

The wise old man then tells her to turn all the animals out of the house, and as she does so, her once ‘weeny’ house seems to grow larger and larger. When the last animal is turned outside, she declares that her house is ‘gigantic’ and happily moves back in declaring:

“There’s no need to grumble, and there’s no need to grouse,
There’s plenty of room in my house!”

This simple, children’s story clearly demonstrates the importance of your thinking in the relationship between what you think and how you interpret the world. The only thing that changed in the old lady’s house was her own perspective of it, but that was all that was needed.

Now if we extend this story and bring in the law of attraction to it, we would expect that as the old lady began appreciating and giving thanks for her house, then manifestations would be set in motion to eventually bring her a physically larger house in which to live. It’s the law.

And so it is with every day life. If you are complaining about the lack of something or the injustice of something, then you focus is on that. Since the law of attraction does not work in negatives (it simply cannot bring you a negative), it can only deliver to you what you are focused on – i.e. lack or more dissatisfaction.

So How Do You Find Your Gratitude?

Here are my top 3 tips on finding and implementing an ‘attitude of gratitude‘ into your life:

1. Understand that there is ALWAYS something to be grateful for and focus on that

The story of the old lady and her house illustrates beautifully the importance of perspective and relativity. When my daughter asks if she is tall, I always reply “compared to what?” Perspective is about how you personally think and view things.

“To an ant” I say to my daughter, “you are enormous, but to the Eiffel Tower, you are minuscule.”

(She now responds to other people’s questions at school with a knowing, slightly supercilious, “compared to what?”)

The point is, there is always something that you can be thankful for in every situation. You may only be able to view it from a limited perspective for a while, until you are able to expand your awareness, but at every perspective there are things to be grateful for.

For example, if you view your financial situation as inadequate, then this is focusing on the negative. But if you can turn this around so that you can see your current situation as simply a step on the path to something better, then you will have something to be grateful for, which will automatically raised your vibration and in doing so, expand your perspective. From this new perspective, you will find other things that you can be grateful for and the effect will snowball.

Don’t limit yourself to only one area either: be very general if you need to about the things that are working out for you – think of yourself as a spherical consciousness that is expanding in all directions at the same time. As you find gratefulness in one area, other areas of your life will expand to keep up.

I sometimes imagine myself like a balloon filling with air. I imagine the energy flowing into me, expanding not only my own consciousness but that of everything else that I am in contact with. When you think like this, every breath you take is leading you to your destination and you can be grateful for it.

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2. Know that help is always on the way

If you struggle with viewing your current situation from an optimistic perspective, then tell yourself that ‘help is on the way‘ and be grateful for that knowledge.

The recent rescue of the Thai boys and their coach from the caves in Thailand was remarkable. They were alone in the cave for 2 weeks before they were found but said that they never gave up hope using their faith in their religion to help them get through. And help did indeed come to save them.

The universe and your higher self is in a constant state of expansion – it is evolving, building on the experiences of each and every one of us as it does so.

Source energy is synonymous with unconditional love. It knows your circumstances and where you stand now in relation to where you want to be and it is always sending you this energy in response to your emotional vibrational state. The only thing you need to do is tune into it and you will receive what is always being transmitted. It’s the old Esther Hick’s radio analogy again.

You exist as an extension of source energy, a highly focused beam of energy if you like, which is like a laser-like consciousness, focused into physical form. However, the larger part of you, your higher-self, retains the perspective of source energy and has access to that energy at all times, as do you.

The only difference is that sometimes the physically focused part of you lets this helpful energy in and sometimes you don’t. Look up from your problem and you will see the help being offered.

For help is always there, so even in dark times, if you can trust and be grateful for this help, you will receive it in your physical world.

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3. Physicalise or vocalise your gratitude: start a gratitude journal

This is one of the easiest ways to show your appreciation of the things and situations around you. You can type, write or speak the words, but making lists of things that you are grateful for (whilst feeling the appreciation for them), is a great way to raise your vibration and invite more positive energy into your life.

You can start with the simplest of things: the abundance of air you breathe, or the knowledge that no matter what is happening in your personal situation, the sun will rise each day anew, bringing new hope and new energy.

Make lists of positive things you already have, from your friends, to your pets, the clothes on your back and the food that you eat. Once you get started with the ‘attitude of gratitude’ more and more similar thoughts will be drawn in and you will soon find yourself grateful for every hair on your head and every cell in your body.

You will not only begin to see the beauty and abundance around you, but you will find it easier to visualise the way you now want your life to unfold and be grateful you are on the path to achieving it. There will be a subtle shift from a perspective of lack (“I don’t have what I want”) to one of gratitude and expectation (“I’m grateful for the things I have and I can’t wait for even greater things to come”). The difference is subtle but oh so important.

Gratitude and desire build momentum – and momentum of thought leads to the physical manifestation of things. You just need to be sure that the momentum you’re building is in terms of positive energy based on gratitude, rather than negative energy based on a perspective of lack.

Express your gratitude however you want – a journal, a prayer, a song, a dance. The way you express it is not important but the fact that you are saying “thank you” for what you have, is.

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So there you have it, 3 ways in which you can start to show your appreciation to the universe and benefit from the raised vibrational energy you will attract.

And if you’d like to know more, here are some great books that I recommend on how to bring more gratitude into your life.

Please do leave a comment on how you offer gratitude for your own life.

In love and light.

Gail

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