On Gratitude

"Practise Gratitude", they would say. 

"Be more grateful", they would advise. 

Yet I was getting more and more confused... 

Photo by Puwadon Sang-ngern from Pexels

Over the years of my personal development journey I really couldn't quite comprehend this thing called Gratitude. Maybe because I do consider myself grateful already, doing my best to serve people around me and having good 'please' and 'thank you' manners that always go with my big smile. Or maybe because as a child I had the example from novels and children's stories of how one should NOT BE (e.g. one character criticizing another "How ungrateful you are!"). But I hadn't really made the point of understanding this one fundamental thing:

What does Gratitude really mean?

Recently, this word has been ringing in my ears from various directions. To me as a self-aware and self-observing person this meant that I had to pay attention and spend some time with GRATITUDE.

The first Aha! moment came from a book I use quite often ("Emotions and Essential Oils"). In there, in the entry about a certain essential oil it says that gratitude is the expression of complete acceptance and abundance. Well, I wasn't thinking of Gratitude in these terms at all! But it does make sense, really!

"A grateful person is content with what they have." the book continued. This was the second Aha! of the morning! I never thought of Gratitude as being in the state of contentment - a grateful person is content to be where they are, who they are, regardless of the circumstances they are in. 

So, the true meaning of Gratitude came to me when I realised that a grateful person is happy to accept BOTH their blessings and their challenges.

This is where I wasn't getting it: 

How can I be content with my challenges?! Especially when they are current, happening right now, feel sore, making me unhappy, tense, angry, and feeling like a victim, right?! It seems easier to be grateful about past events that I have lived through and learned the lessons form, like my divorce, 9 years ago. Right now I feel grateful that it happened but while it was unfolding I was totally miserable and suicidal. I was resisting it, wanting to control, to be in charge so I wouldn't lose the persona I had created for myself.

This is what I discovered this morning:

When we learn to feel true appreciation for life, this is when we become fully grateful. We want to drop the ego and allow the soul to surrender and accept life exactly as it is. To let go and find appreciation for all of the life circumstances and experiences. This is where real growth happens. Especially so if we didn't have this example as we were growing up.

My childhood was a good one (I am grateful for it), but my parents didn't know the meaning of Gratitude either. They would preach to me that I should be the best at everything, better that other children and if I wasn't quite managing all that, they would be telling me off. Comparing, judging, only accepting the 'good' and fighting the 'bad', was what I learned to do. I developed a perfectionist type of mentality which meant that doing the good, the right thing, in the best possible way was what made me a good person, worthy of love. There was no space (in my perception) for mediocrity, 'bad' choices, and not performing at my best. Never in my life had I seen a true application of Gratitude and how powerful it could be for someone to be in such a state of BEing.  

In my further search, I found it interesting to discover that David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness doesn't feature Gratitude in it. He can't have just missed it out by accident, a sensible scholar of his status... Contentment isn't there either... 

But I found this! On 10th Sep 2018, the Dalai Lama tweeted,

"A sense of contentment is crucial to being happy. Physical health, material wealth and friends contribute to this, but contentment governs our relations with them all. "

In other words, in order to feel happy, we first need to feel gratitude and contentment, which is a joyful state full of love and peace. Love is at 500, Peace - at 540, and joy - at 600 along that Map of Consciousness. This makes me believe that Gratitude is this state of being that helps us raise our level of consciousness. From an elevated level of consciousness, the lower emotions of fear can't exist. Then it becomes easy to accept the 'bad' just as well as the 'good', and I would dare even say that 'good' and 'bad' merge into one, and lose their labels. From this state of contentment, it is not even a question of how to accept and appreciate an illness, a heart-break or a loss, something that is happening now. Accepting life, trusting the Universe, letting go of ego - that is what Gratitude stands for me now, having been researching and breathing the wafts of this specific essential oil all morning.

"Through complete surrender and acceptance, the soul may be brought into peace and harmony." says the Emotions book about Spikenard essential oil.

Spikenard!

Spikenard has been in my oil collection for a couple of years but I haven't really bonded with it. Let's say, it wasn't an aroma that I was too keen on. But then I found out that this special oil brings the gift of Gratitude, so I quickly reached for it.

I knew I really needed Spikenard when I read this other sentence in the book,

"Spikenard encourages and assists individuals in seeing the deeper meaning in their lives. It supports them in feeling joy and happiness for other people as well as for themselves."

In another book on Spikenard this was confirmed:

"Spikenard is a great oil for honouring the unique gifts you have brought with you. If you find this oil's aroma not to your liking, it is a strong indicator that you have not unveiled what makes you special and are playing small.

Spikenard will remind you to begin and end each day with gratitude, as well as remaining grateful moment by moment.

When you count your blessings and not your sorrows, the Universe responds by sending blessings and more abundance to touch your life."

Gifts of the Essential Oils

Bottom line:

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough." (Anonymous)

Gratitude is not about ignoring the 'bad' and focussing only on the 'good' but accepting all, letting go of what feels uncomfortable, and as the energy clears one becomes more content, can see the bigger picture and learns the lessons to be had. Gradually moving to "NO MIND" as they teach in a famous Hollywood film.

Have you smelled Spikenard essential oil?
Do you like the smell of it?

And if your interest was sparked, here is where Spikenard comes form - Nepal