The Gratitude Train

What are you thankful for today? With Thanksgiving just around the corner (have you bought your turkey yet?) thoughts naturally turn toward gratitude. So why don't you take a ride on the Gratitude Train and see what pops up?

The first stop is to look around your world - how many things can you give thanks for? A home, a car, a loving family, enough food on the table, a job in this sluggish economy. Gather your gratitude list together and hold on while the train chugs its way to the next stop on our journey.

The landscape has changed somewhat. Instead of lush, green grass and beautiful scenery, you now see a barren desert, windswept and desolate in its isolation. What is this place? It is the land of lack and limitation. Why are you stopping here? Isn't gratitude about giving thanks for the good things, not the bad?

Admit it - thoughts of fear, anxiety about money and knowledge of scarcity in your life or others had taken up residence in your mind. You can't escape the media's negative messages and after a while, you start to believe them (or not). But you can't blame the media - they are just doing their job. It is your choice to listen and believe. Or not.

To be wholeheartedly grateful, one hundred percent authentic, and completely in tune with the spirit of gratitude, you also have to give thanks for the negative things in your life. There are lessons hidden by the images of lack and limitation. Shadows, waiting to be discovered by the enlightened person who knows that everything is perfect, just as it is.

Think back on your life, to the most desperate and desolate time, when you thought you could not move forward another step. What happened? Somehow, you survived and moved on, right? Wasn't there a lesson hidden in the darkness that you did not see until you had moved back into the light? Perhaps you needed to be less judgmental or critical of another person, or more forgiving and loving. Or maybe you needed to be more loving of yourself?

The lesson is to be grateful for the bad times too. Who are you to judge whether an event is good or bad? Do you know all of the factors, the conditions that led up to that event that involved other people? Is your perspective so global in scope that you totally understand why that situation was created in the first place? Only if you can answer yes to questions like these, do you have the luxury to judge a situation or another person.

Fear, anxiety, and negativity are all creations of the ego trying to protect you. But the results of these limiting thoughts and beliefs is to dam up the flow of gratitude in your life. When you drop the judgmental thoughts and criticisms, gratitude comes rushing into your life.

Take a moment to reflect on the "bad" times and discover the beautiful lesson that lay hidden just underneath the surface. Only after you can look the bad times head on and say "thank you" will you be able to continue your journey on the gratitude train.

Look - you are back where you started! You just took a journey through your life and discovered new treasures you did not know existed. Peacefulness and joy are your constant companions, as thoughts about the past are replaced by living fully in the moment of now. Concentrate on being present, being grateful every time you take a breath, and your life will change forever.

Listen! The Train is leaving again. Want to go on another round?