Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten

Part two of a series of articles to help encourage abundance and peace in our lives.

2. Giving Thanks

Okay, hands up everyone who has never had a whinge about their job, their car or their relationship?

If you raised your hand then you are either a practised fibber or you are enlightened need read no further!

That’s because this article is about being grateful for what we have got. Don’t blench (well, you can blench if you want to) — we’re not trying to be like your Granny. The point is that giving thanks actually works.

The reason for that is the Universe’s unassailable pattern of giving us exactly what we ask for. As the Universe takes everything literally, it cannot see that if we are irritated or ungrateful about something, we are doing it because we don’t want it. In its infinite wisdom, the Universe just thinks ‘Oh, you spend so much time being hacked off about things that being hacked off has to be what you enjoy doing most, so I’ll give you some more things to be hacked off about.’ And, guess what? There you are with another load of trouble.

The way to get the Universe to be nice to you is to be grateful for what it has already given you. It is that simple. But, as we have pointed out elsewhere on the site, no one ever said that it was easy!

Now, it would take a doctorate in Prosperity Training to say ‘thanks!’ with some sincerity for the fact that someone’s just pranged your car or a bird has done what comes naturally on the shoulder of your favourite jacket but there is a lot that can be done to let the Universe know that nice things are appreciated and that you would like more of them.

It’s a tough one sometimes, not least because our parents or grandparents may have schooled us in the belief that we ‘ought’ to be grateful for things that we never wanted or asked for and we can be very resistant (quite rightly) to insincere gratitude. Pretty well everyone has, at some time, had to say ‘thank you’ to an Auntie Freda or Uncle Phil for a gift that was worse than useless.

However, genuine gratitude is a very different thing. The most immediate benefit of expressing gratitude for something in your life is that you will actually feel better. Being thankful for 10, 20, 50 or 100 things will have quite a profound effect. For a start, most of us don’t even think we could imagine 100 things to be grateful for — but they are there no matter how your life may feel and just knowing it helps.

You don't even have to believe it for it to work - but give it a try!

Reasons to be cheerful

Very simple gratitudes are the best such as being thankful for being able to see, to hear, to speak, to walk, to touch. If you can count ten things you appreciate about each of your five senses, you have already counted 50 and that’s without even trying.

Then there is thankfulness for the sky above or autumn leaves or physical health. You can go to the sublime, such as Haagen Dazs’ Lemon Cheesecake Pie ice-cream, or the ridiculous, in that you’ve managed to get rid of the dog’s fleas at last. It really can be fun!

How does it work? Well, gratitude, like every other emotion, programmes the electro-magnetic field around and within us with energy. Positive energy makes it much easier for the Universe and other people to help us achieve our desire to be happy. You’ve heard the phrases ‘glowing with health’ or ‘she looks radiant’. Well, they do. It’s happiness in the aura; no more; no less.

Put yourself in the Universe’s place for a moment. Say, you’ve got a hundred pounds that you need to offload to somebody. You take a look around and find two people in the same room as you who both want some money. One of them is moaning about how uncomfortable the chair they are sitting is, how nothing ever goes their way; that they never get lucky and that everyone rips them off. They are also bitching about someone they know ‘with more money than sense’ and as for what they think of the colour scheme in the room — well it doesn’t bear thinking about.

When someone tells them that they’ve got a nice jumper on, they say ‘What? This old thing? You must be mad.’ This person, on being offered the money would say: ‘That won’t even cover the telephone bill. Anyway, what’s the catch?’

The second person is looking around them with evident interest and enjoyment. They have folded up their jacket to make their seat comfortable and they are thinking how much they enjoyed talking to a friend earlier on in the day. When someone tells them that they are wearing nice shoes, they smile and say ‘Oh! Thank you.’

On being offered the money, they would say ‘Wow, that’s wonderful. Thank you!’

Now, which of them would you, as the Universe, rather give the money to? Oddly enough, the Universe agrees with you (unless, of course, you’re just being perverse!).

One of the main principles of prosperity is that like attracts like so that by feeling good about a situation you will attract a new situation which is even better. If you feel bad about your last job then be assured that the next one will contain all the same problems even if the boss has a different face.

When we are able to express gratitude for the things we enjoy in our lives it becomes easier to shine in ourselves and attract a better job or car or relationship. The Universe plays that game all the time. Whinge at work and it gives you more to whinge about. Find every ounce of enjoyment that you can in work (even if it’s just chatting with others or putting up pictures you like or having plants or flowers around you) and the Universe will notice that you believe that you deserve something good and give it to you. Try it!

Relationships

Even difficult relationships (particularly difficult relationships!) can also be something for which we can be grateful even though it may take us some time to appreciate them fully — but it’s a good idea to duck if you say that to anyone’s face.

Every difficult relationship that we have is an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and others — and quite often the lesson is not to put up with the crap! If someone has behaved like an utter b******* to you, then why did you allow them into your life in the first place? Where did you not notice what they were like, or take care of yourself or accept second best — or where did you let yourself down by not communicating to them or being unfair to them so that they reacted against you?

The very least that The B****** can teach you is that you absolutely deserve something better. ‘Thanks mate — I’m outta here!’ And when you’re married to that gorgeous, kind and loving millionaire with homes in Malibu and the South of France, you’ll be grateful all right! And he (or she) is far more likely to turn up if you start being thankful now.

In a steady relationship, being grateful for your partner’s good points can strengthen love. It can even turn a bad relationship around and rekindle passion. Occasionally, even an ailing marriage can even be saved if the partners would look for the good in each other and bless that instead of searching for division and focussing all their attention on what is wrong. Can’t think of anything to be grateful for in your partner? Have they been an axe-murderer lately? No? Well start with that! Start anywhere you can — but start now.

Every day presents us with a new chance to play the game. Each day's goal can be to see how many genuine statements of gratitude you can make. You don't have to do them all verbally since you don't want to get up people's noses and be too pretentious. Some will be verbal, some mental. If you find you are losing count — great! You have begun to realise what an amazing world we live in and how much we have to be thankful for. Log the number of gratitudes for each hour and then add them up at the end of each day. Truly, you will be stunned.

Once you are making gratitude part of your life, you can even try to be grateful for your bills. Our society has been carrying the habit of resentment for being charged for goods we have already used and enjoyed. If your reaction to that is that you do not enjoy using electricity, gas, water or the services of the dustmen, then why not? Start feeling grateful for the miraculous workings of the world which make it so easy for us to live in warmth and comfort. This will also bring awareness of how much energy we do use and may make us make a conscious decision to wear a thicker sweater and turn the heating down. Then you can be grateful for the sweater!

It is all too easy to forget that life was meant to be lived with joy. Every thought that we think creates life and light within us — or darkness and negativity. Choose life – and Life will choose you.