High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Gratitude’

“We need a renaissance of wonder.  We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is a miracle and magic.” ~E. Merrill Root

Wonder is gratitude’s cousin, a welling up of awe at the glorious mystery of it all.  It comes from somewhere beyond thought, lifting the veil of naming so that we see can what is before us directly and be amazed.  It opens up our child-eyes and reveals a world that’s fresh and unexplained.

Wonder is filled with the isness of things in all their pristine beauty.  It shows us their sparkle and depth, their harmony and connection, the way that everything dances together in one grand, majestic song.

It piques our appetite for life.  It teases our curiosity.  It shows us how little we know, how much remains to be discovered.  And so we probe the grand design of the world, with its atoms and quarks, its cells and spinning galaxies.  And we are stunned by it and surprised and filled with admiration.

“From wonder into wonder, existence opens,” said LaoTzu.  At every turn, there is more to see and all of it is a marvel, and none more than we who look upon it.  We, who are blessed with consciousness and perception; we, who can feel ecstasy and love; we are blessed just to be.

As this holiday season of joy and celebration descends upon us, open your heart to the wonder of it all.  Let your soul sing its song, and your mind open to its beauty and reclaim the sense that life is indeed miracle and magic.

“Happiness,” says Denis Waitley, “is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”

Nobody, of course, is happy every minute.  We’re people, after all, subject to the whole range of emotions.  We tumble into pits of misery and boredom; we get sucked into anger and frustration and doubt.

But it’s the darkness that makes the light so beautiful.  It’s sorrow that makes us long for happiness and that pushes us forward in its pursuit.

Once we find it, though, it’s exactly what Waitley describes.  It’s the singing of the spirit bathed in grace, in gratitude and love.

It’s the awareness of our connection to the essence of being, the existential joy that undergirds and permeates all that is.

And just as grace and love and gratitude bubble up from the depths of happiness, they also serve as pathways to its shores.   In the grace of kindnesses freely given, joy arises. Love, in any of its colors, links us to happiness at its very core.  But it’s gratitude that offers us the simplest return to happiness when we have temporarily lost our way.

Begin naming the things for which you are thankful, the things that you appreciate in your life, and the healing of gratitude will begin to dissolve whatever barrier stands between you and your joy.  Gratitude turns your attention away from the empty places and illuminates the abundance in your life.  It guides you from a focus on what you think you have lost to an awareness of what you have left and what you have left unclaimed.  It redirects your sight away from the seeming obstacles that block your path and shows you new possibilities.

And the magic of it, the power of it, lies in the fact that once you begin to name the things for which you are grateful – the possessions, the abilities, the strengths, the relationships, the talents, the potentials, the pleasures – the more things you see to name.

Looking for a sure path to greater happiness?  I’ve got one for you.  But before I tell you, I need to remind you again that the four most dangerous words in the English language are, “I already know that.”

The sure path is gratitude.  And even if you think you know it’s good for you, if you’re not actively practicing it in your life, you’re robbing yourself of one of life’s most golden joys.

Not only does genuine gratitude feel wonderful, but it comes with its arms full of gifts.  Consider some of the things that researchers have discovered about people who cultivate gratitude in their lives:

•    They experience less stress;
•    They’re more successful in careers and relationships;
•    They cope better with daily problems;
•    They value themselves positively;
•    They’re more spiritually aware and feel more connected to life;
•    They’re more optimistic;
•    They exercise more regularly, and achieve better physical health and vitality;
•    They worry less about status or the accumulation of possessions;
•    They describe themselves as happy and satisfied with life.

Feeling gratitude doesn’t mean you’re a Pollyanna, that you’re unaware of the suffering in the world, or that you don’t experience disappointments.  It means that even in the midst of these, you see life’s goodness as well.    It means that, despite life’s tragedies and shortfalls, you’re thankful that you were given the opportunity to live on this amazing blue marble, to walk beneath its skies, to see its beauty, to have amiable companions along the way.

Gratitude means you don’t take life’s blessings for granted.  It means you allow yourself to appreciate what you have and who you are—body, mind and soul.  Instead of seeking out faults and shortcomings, you look for the things that work, the things that succeed, the things that bring you comfort and ease and smiles.  You notice the kindnesses others do for you, the words of encouragement, friendship, and support.  You appreciate the ways you benefit from the efforts of the people who have gone before you, and of countless strangers, whose contributions enable you to travel and read and eat and wear clothing, to have water pouring from your faucets and light beaming from your lamps.

Gratitude enriches you by making you more aware of your riches, of the abundance of blessings in your life on all of its planes.  Turn it on.  Turn it up.  Let it flow.