(This is the second in a series of observations on Happiness, and what causes it — or can cause it — in the experience of human beings.)
I am going to share with you now a device with immense power — a simple device that can transform almost any moment, almost miraculously, almost immediately, into a moment of happiness. The tool is Gratitude.
Gratitude is not merely an emotion, it is a decision.
So powerful is this decision that it becomes a definition and a declaration. It defines and declares your experience of Here and Now. And hence, your reality.
Gratitude can be a simple reaction, or it can be a magnificent creation. It is a simple reaction when your Mind is on Automatic. It is a magnificent creation when your Mind has merged with your Soul in making a combined choice about any Present Moment.
In every Moment that choice is always the same: to move into Reaction or Creation.
(You might have a little fun noticing that “reaction” and “creation” are very close to being the same word. Only the C and the R need to be reversed. When you C what you have always been meant to C, then you R what you always R—and the course of your life is reversed.)
While Gratitude may be one of the most powerful tools your Mind has ever been given, it may also be the most underutilized. This is no doubt because most people are not aware of the immense power of Gratitude to reverse a thought that is at the foundation of all suffering.
As earlier noted, the central cause of suffering is the idea that something is happening that should not be happening. Gratitude unleashes an energy that turns this idea on its head, announcing that just because something is unpleasant does not mean it is unbidden, unwelcome, or unwanted.
It should be understood that pain (both physical and emotional) can, in fact, be bidden, welcome, and wanted—for any one of a number of reasons that may serve the agenda of the Body (birthing pain, for instance, or a tooth extraction) or the Mind (the pain of the loss of a loved one, which you would choose and wish to experience…or the pain of realizing you have deeply hurt another, and that this is not Who You Really Are and Who You Want To Be).
Yet if the Mind thinks that a particular pain in “unwanted,” it will not abide it—and that is precisely what creates struggle in one’s life, and suffering.
Struggle is the result of the Mind rejecting what the Soul offers. It is the Mind deciding to go off in another direction, veering from the Path of the Soul. Suffering is the emotional product of that decision. Both struggle and suffering are creations of the Mind, which is where you reality is created.
What your Mind thinks about something is crucial in determining how you experience it—and Gratitude can cause you to change your Mind.
Yet Gratitude is not a tool with which to fool the Mind, it is a tool with which to open the Mind. It expands your normal, limited thinking to include a counter-intuitive truth: that even when something seems “bad” for you, it can actually be good for you.
Underneath this truth lies a deeper one: Nothing that ever happens is “bad” for you, or it wouldn’t be happening. Life is incapable of producing an event or condition that does not carry you to the next place in your evolution, and that is not designed for your next expression of Divinity. Since the expression of Divinity is the reason you are here, you can be sure that everything that is placed before you appears before you to serve this Divine Purpose. (In other words, your purpose.)
And so we say, Thank you, God. We give thanks for the opportunity to heal an old injury, to close an old wound, to alter an old pattern, to shift an old reality, to release an old story, to change an old idea, and to create a new experience of Self and Life. In short, the opportunity to Demonstrate Divinity — which is the reason you are here.
(In our next installment: Reliable Repetition – Another Tool Creating Happiness)
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