Course Process
Lesson 5: Gratitude
Lesson 5 : Gratitude – Part 1 MP3
Lesson 5 : Gratitude – Part 2 MP3
Lesson 5 – Gratitude – Part 1
This lesson takes on a spiritual dimension as Dr Selva Pankaj talks about the attitude of gratitude. Gratitude as an attitude fosters a deep sense of wellbeing, connection to others and connection to nature.
By developing deep feelings of gratitude, you connect yourself to the better part of yourself, and this activates a spiritual dimension of the self. This is the part of the self that exercises both faith and compassion.
For example, you cannot be upset or frustrated at life if you have a deep sense of gratitude for what you currently have. This is not to say that you will not have the desire to achieve more. Indeed the desire to achieve more is also a part of nature as nature herself is always expanding. The point here is only that it is difficult to feel negatively about your current situation or to be jealous of what others have if you effectively cultivate the attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is an attitude that keeps you positive, keeps you in creative flow, and prevents you from falling into competitive thought processes.
Counterintuitively, the more grateful you are for what you have, the more you actually get. As Oprah puts it:
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
Gratitude brings you closer to what you desire by means of “a strange alchemy”. Both Bob Proctor and Wallace D Wattles talk about this as the law of gratitude, which is taken to be one of the natural laws. It is certainly ironic that by being genuinely grateful for what you have, you tend to attract more abundance, however the reason is more practical than magical.
The attitude of gratitude keeps us grounded and humble and in a state of humility we are more receptive to new ideas that will help us grow. Also, gratitude keeps your mind away from negative thinking. The minute your mind begins to focus on dissatisfaction, it is that emotion that is amplified, and that is the energy that is returned to you. When in contrast your mind is focused on gratitude, it is that positive emotion that is amplified, and that positive energy that is returned to you.
How do we maintain gratitude? Here are three practical steps:
- Write a gratitude journal
- Emotionalise the entries in your gratitude journal
- Find things to be thankful for every day
Lesson 5 – Gratitude – Part 2
Let us explore further the spiritual dimension of gratitude.
The grateful mind continuously expects good things. These expectations are a kind of unshakable faith. Therefore cultivating an attitude of gratitude is also a matter of creating and strengthening faith that the future will be full of positive outcomes. The more you practice gratitude, the greater this faith becomes.
The faith which is consequently cultivated by gratitude is essential for success. When you set goals, you must have faith that your ambitions can be realised. The belief in the viability or potential of a project is absolutely critical to its success. Also critical to success is the faith that you can, through your own actions, achieve the results that you desire. It is this faith, this expectation that good things will happen, that will enable you to persist through tough times. Thus, gratitude builds faith, and the strength of your faith supports (but does not fully determine) successful outcomes. In this way, gratitude is actually foundational to success.
Of course, we are not talking about religious faith here. Faith is defined here as a belief about a definite future outcome.
“Faith is the ability to see the invisible and believe in the incredible and that is what enables believers to receive what the masses think is impossible”.
Do cultivate the attitude of gratitude, and do be grateful, especially for the simple things – the fact that you have woken up in the morning, that it is a beautiful day, that you have food to eat and water to drink, the fact that you have friends or family that you love. All of these are things to be incredibly grateful for. In cultivating this attitude, you will reap enormous benefits including:
- More positive outlook
- Appreciation for the little things
- Greater feelings of compassion, faith and humility
- More resilience
- More likelihood of success in your chosen endeavours