You’ve probably heard of keeping a gratitude diary or the power of being grateful. Maybe you’ve tried it and maybe it helped a little but you forgot to keep doing it or maybe you just didn’t notice any change? (scroll down for a powerful practice and a gift!)
Lately I’ve been blown away once again by the power of gratitude and with the recent celebration of Thanksgiving in the US I felt called to share a bit about this so that maybe you can claim some of this gratitude effect too.
I’d like to share a little bit of our personal story. My husband’s business was severely impacted by Covid restrictions and eventually wasn’t feasible so we were forced to downgrade our lifestyle in a big way. We therefore made the decision to move to St Francis Bay and, as with all challenges, there was such a gift in this (but more about that later!)
He then started to mine crypto currency which was doing really well. Until it wasn’t! If you’re into crypto you will know exactly what I’m talking about….This left him at a loose end and so he started a new business but this is taking a long time to get going, as can happen with new businesses.
In the meantime, I was working on a time for money basis and haven’t had the time to make the money we needed so I began to totally re-create my business (which is still unfolding for me – another gift from this challenge we’ve been through!)
The last three months have been really tough. We’ve had months like these in the last 2 years and Every. Single. Time. something has happened so that we pull through financially. It’s truly remarkable how the universe, divine, God (insert your preferred term here) always supports us.
But this hasn’t stopped me from going in major scarcity mentality and activating my nervous system in a big way at times.
Many of my tools (that I share with clients in my coaching programme) help and I believe they have also served to support me to remain open to receiving abundance at the times when it’s been hardest but recently I stepped back into a gratitude practice that has been nothing short of remarkable for me.
I’ve been doing this for 2 weeks and while there are many outward reasons to panic I have been finding moments of incredible joy and ease through it all. There are times my mind starts up and the panic steps in and then I practice this more and use my tools of being present with the emotions and it all becomes easy again.
PRACTICING THE GRATITUDE EFFECT:
1. As many times a day as often as you can remember (or set reminders) stop and think of 5 things you can be grateful for. Say out loud “Thank you for……” for each one.
2. Now here’s the important part: Tune into a deep feeling of gratitude or expansion in your heart. You can do this by thinking of something/someone you deeply love and as you practice gratitude feel that expansion in your heart space as much as you can (take a look at HeartMath to learn more about the power of the heart). You can also visualise this expansion if you can’t feel it.
What is really really important about the above steps is that you are observing and acknowledging WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE. When you are in this energy you receive more of the same frequency. And please remember that the abundance frequency includes not only money but joy, ease, vitality and health.
3. Work with afformations daily. These are affirmations but framed as a question so that your brain starts to search for evidence that they’re real versus automatically rejecting them (neat right?!) I have been using afformations for a few years now but it was recently suggested to me to record my afformations and listen to them every day for as long as possible for 21 days. I feel this has had a big impact on my life too in the last few weeks.
MY GIFT FOR YOU
I have created some afformations for you to use which I’ve looped so that you can have some uninterrupted listening. They may not all be relevant to you but I trust most of them will have value for you. Play them in the background or while sleeping. and please share feedback about your experience after a week or so!
I’ll end off with another story about the gratitude effect – Last week while sitting in a very quiet, connected space feeling gratitude, I had an idea pop into my head to advertise our services for property rental and guest management during this busy season in our town. This was met with an abrupt retort on Facebook that it’s illegal without X,Y,Z (despite so many people doing it without these things). However, the idea still felt right so we went back to the drawing board and rebranded ourselves as Household PA’s.
I advertised that on Monday. On Tuesday we decided to go upriver on my father-in-law’s boat and had a beautiful afternoon which I was so grateful for (one of the amazing gifts of living where we do). Following that little experience, we had 3 inquiries for our services. As my daughter said, “Mommy, it was because our energy was in the right place”
The gratitude effect truly is powerful….
And on that note I also want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who read my emails and posts and to all of those who I have worked with as clients. I feel very grateful that my life is able to entangle with you so that perhaps your lives can be touched by something I share while I continue to be touched by having all of you in my life.
