Have you ever felt like a bad person for not feeling thankful?

We often hear advice, like, “Make a gratitude journal,” or “Ccount your blessings.” Riiiiiight. When cynicism is turned up high and grateful people are pushing your buttons, it’s time to get down with your bad self before you do any more vibrational damage.

Gratitude is a choice. But when you’re angry, broken-hearted, grieving, or feel like everything turned out wrong, it can be very difficult to choose gratitude. So what can we do when we aren’t feeling especially grateful?

Use compassion as a bridge to get to gratitude. Here’s how…

• First, IDENTIFY where you are. Judgment will only lock in negativity, so be a neutral observer and note your feelings without judgment. Refer to my other posts about disappointment and work with those feelings.
• Next, ACCEPT your feelings. Breathe into them… then the fun part…have a tantrum! Get into it. Exaggerate your feelings. Really give yourself permission to be upset, heart-broken, sad, lonely, or angry. Allow emotions to rise to the surface. By deeply connecting with them, you begin the process of releasing them, so they no longer dominate your mind, body, and spirit. If you feel a bit drained afterward, know that you are doing good and productive emotional work.

When that wave of emotional energy has passed, it’s time to move into compassion. Place your hand on your heart and talk gently to yourself. Relate to yourself with understanding. Remind yourself of the vast power gained by letting go of such heavy emotions. Be soothing and soft as you connect with your heart. Voila. Won’t be long now…

From compassion, it’s a quick move into feeling honest gratitude!

Here are helpful hyp keys to cultivate gratitude:

Hyp Keys are formulated to expand awareness by incorporating subconscious communication-friendly principles in a MEPS format.

What are MEPS? Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual nuggets of goodness you can apply immediately.

• Mental: Choose to be a grateful person. Actively stop complaining and create a mantra like: ‘Moment by moment i notice more and more to be grateful for’. Or, ‘I am thankful for my life.’
• Emotional: See above.
• Physical: Set up reminders to establish good habits. Set alarms on your phone with reminders to breathe in gratitude or to repeat your grateful mantra. Check out the Sensory Anchoring Technique™ for an added boost in building grateful habits.
• Spiritual: Serve. There is nothing like contrast to build awareness. If you want to truly appreciate your life, get out and serve those in a less fortunate position. Helping others who are less fortunate provides significant perspective on your own life and illuminates the many reasons you have to be grateful.

A few more notes on gratitude:

• Dr. Masauro Emoto showed that water crystals form patterns in relation to emotional energy. YOU are mostly made of water.
• Gratitude amplifies your sensory perception. This is a theory I’ve developed based on my own experience and observation. I encourage you to try it as well. Say a heart-felt prayer over your food at your next meal and notice if the food tastes better.

Love and Gratitude

• What if the habit of gratitude creates a reservoir of energy that acts as a buffer to protect the heart from the effects of anger? I believe practicing gratitude is a potent remedy for anger issues and a consistent gratitude practice leads to bliss. I’ve invented an entire product line based on this simple but POWERFUL understanding.
• Gratitude enhances the functioning of your immune system! More on this in the last article on gratitude that you can read here.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

— Marcel Proust