Giving Gratitude
October 31st, 2006 by Richard CockrumWe all have words we don’t like, words that immediately raise a negative emotional connotation. One of those words for me was gratitude. Yeah, yeah, I know. Generally gratitude means to be thankful for something that someone did for us. But to me it also implied a sense of indebtedness, which turns things into a market transaction. So, I would implicitly replace it with the word thankful in my mind. This may not seem like much to you, but to me it was.
But, like I tell Lady Glynis, I’m ignorant, not stupid. Sometimes I do open up enough to get the message, so when I start seeing things like Christine Kane’s Practicing Gratitude, and reading books like the Science of Getting Rich, which makes gratitude a centerpiece of creation, and now seeing Nneka’s series A Season of Gratitude and Steve’s powerful post on learning to give love, rather than just expressing it, even I start understanding.
You know that we create our own reality. Some people put this in terms of the law of attraction. Others say thoughts are things. This is always true, and always effective. Like gravity or any other natural law, It Just Works. But it can work on many different levels and with different degrees of effectiveness. The least effective of these is the superficial, personality-driven level. When we work on this level, we express things. But in our expression, we maintain a barrier between ourselves and the world, between ourselves and our spouse, between ourselves and our children, between ourselves and the bum we meet on the street. The barrier may be thin, but it is there. It’s our personal suit of armor. With this barrier up, we aren’t open to receive. Until we learn to receive, we cannot truly give. This barrier also separates us from that part of ourselves that is always whole, that part that truly does the work of creation. Why stay behind a veil, when we can be whole? We make progress, we grow and slowly re-integrate ourselves, but we are taking baby steps.
Feeling gratitude, appreciating what we have, who we meet, what we do, is a way to wear away the veil, develop a more positive attitude, and make our beliefs more effective. One of Christine’s suggestions was to keep a gratitude journal, where each day we write down five things for which we are grateful. Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve noticed an overall improvement in my attitude. I am more grateful for what I have, who I meet, and what I experience, both good and (objectively speaking) bad. It’s a practice I recommend to everyone.
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October 31st, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Profound thoughts, Rick. Thanks for sharing them.
October 31st, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Hey Steve,
But does it make sense?
I like to understand things, and thanks in part to you and the others I think I’m starting to understand this. I was concerned that you may feel like I was misinterpreting some of what you were saying.
October 31st, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Gratitude Moments Day 8
Today’s gratitude posts, enjoy!
You Gotta Love A Free Expresso Machine by Andrew
Giving Gratitude by Rick
A Conversation About Gratitude, Being Where You Are, and Choice by Paris Marashi
Hallowed Gratitude by Dave
Learning to be Grateful
An Over…
November 10th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Hi Rick,
I, too, feel the word ‘gratitude’ is ikky. The concept, however is not. Thanks for pointing out the importance of realizing we need to understand what we have is not always given on a silver platter; we are blessed with what we have and need to acknowledge that blessing.
Carolyn
November 10th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Hi Carolyn!
Sometimes we do get hung up on words. I know. I’ve had a lot of practice at it.:-) If we take time to think about the word and how we think about it, we can find out an awful lot about ourselves and where we’re at.
You may want to take a look at this post on the gratitude as a discipline.
November 23rd, 2006 at 1:13 pm
[…] For those of us in the U.S., today is Thanksgiving, our version of the harvest festival that is traditional worldwide. Thanksgiving has become more than a thanks for a bountiful harvest that will allow us to survive the winter into a new spring when food begins to grow again. It is a symbolical day to give thanks for all that we have received during the past year. In Giving Gratitude I talked about how an attitude of gratitude can improve our lives, and in My Thanks I talked about some of the things I am thankful for this year. […]
April 5th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[…] Welcome to Episode 9 of the Shards of Consciousness Podcast. This episode is based on the article, Giving Gratitude. […]
May 20th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
In every little things that someone did for me I’d showed gratitude in return. And it benefited me by having so many people that I comfortable speak to and for me it so awesome. Having people called friends is just priceless.
-Jan
May 20th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Hi Jan,
Having people to call friend is priceless. Since I wrote this post I’ve found more and more the importance of gratitude to both me, as the one expressing gratitude, and those to whom I feel gratitude.