The Healing Power of Gratitude

As I sit down to write my annual Thanksgiving message, I feel a little stuck.

What can I say about gratitude that hasn’t already been said?

I stop, adjust my chair.

No one can be expected to find inspiration at that chair height.

I check my to-do list. Isn’t there something else I need to do first?

Here is the truth. Those are just stalling methods. And so is waiting for inspiration.

Sure, sometimes inspiration happens. The right words pop in and I’m oh so grateful. Yet most of the time, I must open myself to Source and allow. I must make the conscious effort to know what it is I’m meant to write.

I’m so grateful to the teachers who have shown me how. The writing teachers in college who expected a new story each time we met regardless of the whims of inspiration. The physic who taught me to open to Source, setting aside my ego to allow the wisdom of the unseen world to flow through my fingers, my voice. The shaman who showed me how to navigate the line between physical and spiritual, bringing both together in my writing. All the mentors since who have held space for me to go deep and uncover what it is I’m meant to share with the world.

I grateful to the authors who inspire me to be a better writer. Who sweep words sweetly from their pen into my soul, creating a resonance that calls me to share my wisdom.

I’m grateful to my tribe, who send me messages of love when something I’ve written touches them, encouraging me to open up one more time, to open today, to see what message needs to be delivered into the world

So, I open my Akashic Records. Immediately I hear, “Gratitude is more than just listing your happy things once a year before you start the feast. It’s so much more.”

Gratitude is an energy of healing as well as a force of attraction.

We all know that what we focus on, we bring more of into our life. So, focusing on the good, brings more goodness. Focus on the clients who have hired you, feeling deep gratitude, and more clients will find their way to you. Focus on the money that has come to you and all the luscious things you’ve been about to create as a result and more money will come.

It’s easy to be grateful for the good things. For the feast of the day and the little children attempting to eat a turkey drumstick. It’s easy to be grateful for the clients who said yes to your offer and whipped out their credit cards to make the first payment right then and there. It’s easy to be grateful for teachers who supported you unfailingly, making you feel loved, respected and acknowledged. It’s easy to be grateful for sunshine and blue skies.

But what about the rest of it? The rest of life?

What about the days that are so hard you can barely make it out of bed? The days after a major breakup, when you’ve divided your stuff and the lawyers are working on a settlement agreement. When you feel like a pile of wet leaves abandoned and betrayed and your soon-to-be-ex mother-in-law “consoles” your children for you leaving them when all you left was their abusive father!

What about the days when your car breaks down on the side of the road, in the rain, when you are late for an important appointment, and you have no one to call.

What about when the perfect client says “No” she doesn’t want to work with you. You are too much, too crazy, too ahead of your time. And she’ll go back to her old coach, who is easy and doesn’t ask her to step outside her comfort zone.

In those times I’ve felt bitter… lost… angry, not particularly grateful.

The energy of bitter, lost and angry fills my belly, clogs my throat. I taste its sourness on my tongue.

Suddenly, I want to cry at all the time lost to this feeling. There must be something more. Some reason we, as humans, get to experience this. There must be some gift.

Because I’ve learned through 20 years of coaching outstanding women entrepreneurs, there is always a gift in each experience.

My Record Keepers and Spirit Guides point me back to gratitude.

When I think back to that bitter moment when my ex-mother-in-law tried to turn my kids against me, what is there to be grateful for?

I’m grateful that my daughter found her voice of truth in the moment and told her grandmother, the matriarch of the family, the high queen whose wishes everyone bowed to, that what she said simply wasn’t true. I’m grateful that same daughter was comfortable enough with me to tell me and seek comfort from me.

I’m grateful that I was in that situation. That I had finally found the self-respect to leave behind my abuser, and to reject the further manipulation of his momma.

I’m grateful to the Soul of that man, who did horrible things to me, who made me feel worthless for so long, because without him I never would have found my strength. I never would have learned the lesson of being powerful from within that I came to the earth this time around to learn. That my soul came to the planet to discover. I never would have developed the passion to help other women free themselves from the wound of feeling small, and helpless, and defective.

If I had married my second husband first, I would have been content to float through this life. I would have chosen and easy career, put in my time and been done. He’s easy (most of the time), he supports me and loves me.

I know, on a soul-level, that causing wounding of another is difficult. And without the wounding we don’t develop the special skills and abilities that we need to do the work we were born to do. To serve the healing of our tribe.

So I must be grateful and… dang it… I also am called to send healing love to my ex-husband, my abuser, my children’s abuser.

I really don’t want too. I kind of want him to suffer like I did.

But the Record Keepers are firm. This is part of the healing gift of gratitude. When I send love for his healing, I also heal myself. Which provides space for more abundance in my life.

I want abundance more than I want revenge. I want to release the weight of resentment.

Rumi was right when he said, “The wound is the place where the light enters us.”

So, I begin the ritual.

First, I place a bubble of energy around my body by pushing my energy outward. I feel the heat of it expanding until I’m completely encased.

Next, I close my eyes and place the same bubble of light around my soul. I make this bubble impenetrable to any energy that is not in my highest and best good. Only that which will support me fully can pass through.

I feel dragon energy curling around in in protective mode. The arch-angel Michael with his sword of truth is here and well as my spirit guardians.

I take a breath and send a tendril of light, remembering that it is safe, because only love can pass. He might throw this back at me with hate, but that can’t reach me. He might accept it never knowing where it came from. Either is fine.

“Thank you,” I whisper on the breeze of Source, sending the message across miles and years and the wounds of 1000 lifetimes together. “Thank you for loving me so much that you agreed to be the one to teach me strength. I forgive you for the wounds. I thank you for the lessons. I wish you deep healing.”

This, sweet sister, is the deeper place of gratitude.