“4 Unusual Ways to Give Thanks and Transform Your Life” was offered by AI as I contemplated my title. Thank you, Gemini. This nicely introduces the value of giving thanks. It can help you shape a better life and can even contribute to creating abundance.
Giving thanks “…unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. Turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. And a meal becomes a feast, a house, a home, a stranger, a friend,” asserts author Melody Beattie.
Here is an interesting question to ask — “Why is this?” Perhaps because being grateful is a state of mind indicating elevated awareness. The more elevated one’s consciousness, the higher the vibration one expresses. The higher a vibration one expresses, the more likely we are to attract to us good people, things, and circumstances. (See more about the Law of Attraction in my work, The Manifestation Book.)
Here are 4 ways to give thanks that might seem a little unusual. I will offer a few stories to illustrate. (4 more to come in the next post.)
Thank You Supply Chain
Sometimes I am struck by how blessed I am, and it makes me shiver. As I sat outside recently taking in the end of the day and having crackers, cheese, and wine, a feeling of overwhelming gratitude came over me for all the elements of the supply chain that culminated in my being able to eat well without having to go out in the fields and cultivate it. All the people, animals, trucks, forklifts, warehouses, stores, and credit card machines enabled me to relish a bit of Swiss cheese on a Triscuit cracker, washed down with a nice Napa Valley Chardonnay.
Tears came to my eyes for the time, effort, care, and attention of the forces of the Universe that coalesced to nourish my body and mind, and ultimately my Spirit as I sat in a pool of intense thanksgiving. These nourishing things I exchanged for pieces of paper or electronic impulses, which manifested in my presence through the unfolding of events and circumstances. “What a fortunate guy am I!” I wrote in my journal.
And as I sit here writing this, and revisiting that moment, I am moved, again, at my good fortune.
Application of “Give Thanks”, Extended
Building on thanking the supply chain, it is helpful to offer thanks to everything around me, all the time. I am more and more realizing the depth of the act of offering thanks and appreciation. I am surrounded by many things, things I have placed in my house and things that just seem to show up. Molecules arranged in such a way as to serve some need that I have and serve that need well.
Some examples, again from my journal:
- Today my Toshiba laptop, when I opened it, went through a 20-minute routine of informing me that there was trouble when I last closed it down and did a preliminary diagnostic, an update, a disc repair, and finally a reboot. Back to good as new. “Good computer,” I said, like I say “good girl” to my dog, Maggie. And I meant it. My computer is a workhorse and a friend. It helped me write this piece.
- All my surroundings have, in a way, shown up for my benefit, and stand ready to serve me. They are part of the 3d reality that I occupy. Metaphysically, part of the 5D reality that surrounds and infuses 3d with its form and function. Today I threw away a razor and thanked it for its usefulness to me in my shaving endeavors. Make it a point to praise all things useful.
- If you do, more stuff will want to be with you. This is also true of more/better circumstances and more/better people. To hang out with you. To be liked by you. I know that sounds strange, but it is not odd from a 5D perspective. From that perspective, “stuff” is a metaphor, an idea that somebody had thought through, and many had a hand in shaping for my use. It could be a lamp or a bowl or a telephone or a plant.
From Jim Rohn…
To quote author and speaker Jim Rohn, “There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what you already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity, for ideas and things to flow your way.”
- Take the dangly mobile that hangs over my head as I sit here writing. Some creative, artistic person dreamed up what a bit of copper could turn into and sketched it out. Then took the materials and formed them into something striking. But there was more to be done — marketing, selling, shipping, receiving, and finally getting hung up in my house. For my pleasure, which it does give. I thank The ALL for unfolding in this way so that at this exact moment I am sitting here writing about The ALL and how it unfolded.
- As I open my heart more and more, my heart center gets bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger. And I see how my thanking the people, the happenings, and the furnishings benefit me. How it is a way to be more loving, heartfelt, and compassionate. A way to raise my Awareness. To experience Higher Consciousness more frequently and deeply.
Revere All Things/Beings
Another story comes to mind taking this point to a deeper level. Here is what I wrote earlier this year.
“This morning just before beginning my yoga routine. I was nearly overwhelmed by a reverence for all the things that were in the room. All the things we have collected to surround us in our living room — furniture, pillows, rugs, plants, an Amazon Echo that drives the wireless speaker, the ceiling fan, and the room itself that came with the house — all its parts. All waiting for me this morning to show up and envelop me in their embrace.
I returned the embrace by taking a deep breath and radiating love and appreciation back to my buddy atoms, cells, and electrons that welcomed me into their presence. Sounds strange, I know, but that is the way of the mystic. As I breathed a bit the distinction between my surroundings and me faded a bit. I could feel my body sheath becoming more porous, blending slightly with my surroundings.
Then as I broadened out my view through my eye holes, and took everything in, including the areas outside of the windows. I encompassed the entire scene. No particular focus on one thing but pulling back into my Awareness, listening to myself breathe. And I had a flash of being One with all of what I was perceiving. I didn’t focus in my head, but my Awareness had broadened out until there was no distinction between me inside the body and me outside the body.
Reverence dawned on me for the whole thing. The complete amalgamation of all the particles and space that danced in a unified whole. It seemed like a dance, a dance of those “things” outside of me, gathered to serve and interact with me, fusing with the “things” inside of me into a seamless Whole”.
Revere All Things
This experience reminded me, yet again, of an earlier core realization I had, “Revere all things, revere all beings, from the ant to the spouse, for what and who they are — a part of me”.
The phrase I came up with to capture this way of seeing is “Oneness Eyes”. Using my Oneness Eyes to see the Oneness of myself in “here” with the Oneness “out there”.
Appreciation To/For The ALL. Simply Give Thanks.
This sense of Oneness is not an unusual experience. It is the core purpose of the new meditation process I have developed. One in which I acknowledge The ALL (my words for “God”, which for me has less “charge” than my childhood religious concept of the Divine). The process, if done with a sufficient level of mindfulness and awareness, naturally takes me to an experience of Omnipresence. (See The Meditation Book.)
This Oneness that I speak of in which I am just “being” and can say to The ALL, “Thank you, Isness (another word for The ALL) for your Beingness. For your breath, in and out of Infinity. Your Omniscience, your all-knowingness of that which Is. For allowing me to take part in the dance of the stars and the microbes and sense, incomprehensibly, all things, in all directions.
(I use the word “incomprehensibly” because my human mind cannot comprehend this experience. If it could be, I could put better words to the experience. As it is, words at best provide metaphors for approximating the experience. The writer’s dilemma.)
A Practical “Application” of Appreciation
Before I float away and you stop reading this as being too “Woo Woo”, let me offer a story that is more down to earth. Several years ago, with some difficulty, we bought a house in the Bay Area. Here is what I wrote about that.
“Yesterday we crossed what might be, barring some unusual circumstance, the last hurdle to buying the house we have been trying to acquire for the last two months. Our lender approved us to proceed. We have been working for the past 3 years to make this happen. This has been very much an up-and-down journey, full of twists and turns, and some amazing synchronicities.
Today, as I used to say in North Carolina, “I bought me a house”, or, in this case, more correctly, “We bought ourselves a house”. We went to our agent’s office to sign loan documents with a mobile notary representing the title company for the loan. Everything was pretty much as we expected, and we signed a very thick pile of papers to be presented back to the lender for final, final review. Only days after the money from the bank was released for the sale.
Now the Fun Begins
Whew. Yeah. And now the fun begins, the next steps in the process of our creating. Follow through on that which has unfolded itself as desired. In this case, remodeling a home in significant need of upgrades and updating. To keep the cost down we will be significantly involved in every stage. I have a lot of experience with home remodeling projects, will do a lot of the work myself and/or supervise others in doing the work.
Often, working on a goal and having it begin to unfold as envisioned, is followed by additional work on the details required to bring the thing desired to fruition. The work needed to shepherd the project along and launch off into the mystery of the project itself. I say mystery because, as much planning as I do to manage a project, the plan seldom turns out exactly as expected. There are a lot of things that will require problem-solving and creativity to have it all “turn out”.
We took a moment late this afternoon to go over to the house and do a walk-through with our agent to see the condition the owner had left the house. He brought a nice bottle of wine, and we sat out on the deck, enjoyed the view, and celebrated our meeting a key milestone. I think it is important to celebrate along the way. Not only is celebrating an acknowledgment of everybody and everything that has contributed to a success, but celebrating is a high vibrational thing to do.
Celebrating is also a time to thank internally and externally everybody who has contributed, to acknowledge the magic that occurred along the way (especially if the journey has been difficult), and to offer appreciation to Spirit for Its contribution to the success. For some time our creative process has been about allowing and encouraging Spirit to be present.
Some Exercises
Simple exercises you can do to stimulate thanksgiving:
• Consider things that have ended up in your home and thank each step that got them there. I thank the supply chain for the furniture that is distributed around my house, thanking the many people who have made that possible.
• Serve another person to show your gratitude for them.
• Say simply and sincerely “Thank you”, for things done for you. Offering something specific about what you appreciate can amplify the gesture.
Check out my whole book series, The Amazing Benefits of Meditation, The Meditation Book, The Meditation Journal, The Mindfulness Book, The Manifestation Book, and Homage to Spirit, a book of poetry.
Blair is an author, poet, YouTubist, and ordinary mystic. His 5 award-winning book series are available at Amazon Books, and his YouTube videos at Blair Abee Higher Consciousness Channel.