SOWING HAPPY SEEDS OF GRATITUDE

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SOWING SEEDS OF GRATITUDE

 
As Rhonda Byre states above: "Your thoughts are seeds, and the harvest you reap will depend on the seeds you plant."

So then, what kind of thoughts do we need to reap the abundant harvest we all wish to have in our lives?

One word: Gratitude! Well, maybe two: Appreciation. Thoughts of gratitude and appreciation are the seeds of happiness. 

This post's featured painting reminds me of the beauty and bounty of the earth for which we may feel gratitude and appreciation. Perhaps the women in the painting sense that they are part of the earth, rain and sun as they harvest what they've sowed. Even in their labours, they may feel grateful. (But maybe not... looks like hard work.)

In any case, I believe gratitude is what determines our happiness. Each thought of gratitude is like a seed planted to yield happiness. Over time the seeds of gratitude will grow into a garden of peace and happiness as we reap what we've sown through life. Look at the people you know who are the happiest. Are any of them ungrateful? I doubt it. Rather, they are the happiest.

Gratitude and appreciation are foundational to our happiness and everyone else’s. Our well-being and the well-being of others depends on how we feel within. We are broadcasting stations that constantly broadcast our state of conscious whether we’re aware of it or not. What we transmit to others is transmitted to the world. 

If we’re happy we broadcast happiness. But if we're unhappy we broadcast unhappiness. By being grateful, the world is uplifted one person at a time. It loves gratitude, perhaps because we see so little of it. We uplift others when we express gratitude.

Temporal gratification might make us feel happy at the moment, but if we don’t maintain an attitude of gratitude after the experience, there is no reason to remain happy. For example, I just had a freshly baked blueberry and cranberry muffin which made me happy at the moment. It was delicious, but now it's gone. Not the happiness… the muffin. And yet my happiness lingers as I remain grateful for having had it. What underlies happiness is sustained gratitude, not money, fame, or power.(Take that Hollywood!)

It’s easy to dwell on things that cause us more grief than gratitude, such as when we get our mail and see all the bills that need to be paid. That can be a real downer unless we change our attitude by remembering to be grateful for having sufficient funds to pay these bills.   

It is our responsibility to take care of our emotional health by being aware that it’s always in our best interest to remain happy by practising gratitude. If we are not in the habit of feeling gratitude, we’re probably not going to be that happy in life. This might sound like common sense, but if it is, why do we so easily fall into the trap of being miserable. This habit can easily become our default position.   

That’s why it’s necessary for us to acknowledge all the reasons we should feel thankful. Not just once, but over and over until it becomes a habit that replaces old patterns of negative thought. This requires retraining our mind to perceive abundance rather than lack. After all, how can we be grateful for lack?

If we practise gratitude and appreciation enough, they will become our new reality. That’s the goal! That’s much better than the ego's reality of misery and lack.

So, how can the happy gratitude become our reality?

Simple: make it a habit.

That's it!

And how do we do this – how do we discipline ourselves so make gratitude our default attitude such that it becomes our constant state of reality?

I suggest making a little ritual of it the beginning of each day.

Here’s what I do: I get out of bed, go down the stairs and make a cup of coffee, sometimes with a light breakfast. With that taken care of, I’m ready to enter into my new zone of happy reality. I sit at my table, pick up my pen and begin to write on my notepad all that I can think of for which I’m grateful.

To begin, maybe all I'm aware of is the coffee I’m drinking. But as I focus on it, I become conscious of how good a freshly brewed cup of coffee can taste. 

Then I might look out the window from where I sit and see the morning sun shining beautifully on the trees and grass. Or maybe it’s the freshness of the rain pouring down. That’s beautiful too. I might even go out on my deck and enjoy another cup of coffee and breath in the fresh air. Yes, if I'm mindful, I can even become aware of these revitalizing ions in the morning rain and be grateful. Or the overcast clouds... not gloomy, just peaceful. What’s not to like? I can write that one down too.

What else?

Hmm, no aches or pains in my body this morning… that’s something to be grateful for.

I look around my home. I like my home. I’m grateful for how it makes me feel. Comfortable and peaceful. I’ll think about the vacuuming later.

I like that plant in the corner… haven’t noticed it in a long while, except to water it. It belongs. I appreciate having such a nice plant there and so that's another thing I can be grateful for, as common as it might seem. 

So, what else is there to be grateful for this day… a root canal? We can always be grateful for dentists who do that sort of thing… and so much less painful these days. Okay, that was a bit of stretch but isn't it good to know that the problem will soon be over. Anyone can appreciate that. 

Do we have friends and relatives? Not everyone does. Can we be grateful for having them in our lives? Mostly... I presume. Write down everyone’s names you are grateful for and itemize all their charming qualities (if possible.) If you like being single like I do, you might wish to make note of that too, (perhaps with a big star.) 

How about ordinary things? For example, when was the last time you felt grateful for your washer, dryer and dishwasher doing all the menial work? That might seem trite, but what would it be like to live without these? If we can imagine that, we might feel more grateful next time we put in a load.

Am I grateful for social media? Of course, or I wouldn’t be sharing this. Personally, I just need to remember to avoid Twitter and to tune out all the negativity that robs me of gratitude. I'm even grateful that I preserved my sanity by unsubscribing from cable TV.

Also, we should not neglect the big things in life such as the sun and earth. Can we be grateful for photosynthesis and all the food that it miraculously grows for us, along with blossoms, flowers, and fragrances that delight our senses? How about pets, or the last time we rode a horse? How did that feel?

Okay, you get the idea. Its always about the joy of gratitude when we pay attention to things, be they great or small. It makes little difference; gratitude is gratitude and it always makes us feel good.

Maybe we only think of a few things at first, but each day the list keeps growing as we become increasingly aware of all we took for granted. We may also wish to return to whatever makes us feel good.  How does your coffee taste this morning? If you enjoy it, why not write that down again and relive the happy energy of gratitude. Whatever works… why not?  

This is reprogramming your mind. Even if it seems a bit superficial at first, in time it has a profound impact on how we view the world. As the Nobel Prize Physicist, Max Planck stated early last century: “When you change the way you look at things and the more things you look at change.” Look with gratitude instead of dread and the world will change for the better.

There’s no better way to change than through gratitude. It instantly makes us ‘present’ by delivering us from the pits of the fearful ego, catapulting us back into our divine consciousness where we belong. We don’t even have to work at it once we love our happiness more than our pain and suffering.

Practise gratitude every day and see how quickly you can retrain your mind to be happy. That’s the challenge. Being grateful means engaging our heart to feel good. The mind will accept that because it wants to feel good too. It doesn’t know how to do that on its own and so defaults to the ego every time. When the mind is disengaged with the heart, it is always confused about life. It can have an IQ of 200, but without the heart, it has few if any relational skills.

Even though the mind might be logical and analytical, it can also be really, really, stupid... especially in things that matter such as relationships. The ego-mind knows nothing of gratitude unless it's self-serving. Which is perhaps why the world is as it is… too many smart minds running the show who remain disconnected within… but that’s another subject for another time. As Pascal stated several centuries ago: “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”

Our ego-mind has had its way with us for long enough when we allow it to make us feel miserable. Now’s the time to make it our servant, not our master. Where there is loving gratitude, it has no choice but to accept the heart as boss.

Do we wish to make the world a happier place? We can do this by sowing seeds of gratitude. As this catches on, the world will learn to reap the harvest of happiness.

To start the first day of your happy life of gratitude, I recommend beginning a 'Gratitude Journal,' even if it's just a plain notepad like mine. Leave it in plain sight so you see it first thing in the morning. You might wish to be grateful for the good time you had last night at that party or a hike you just took in nature. If that was a good feeling, you can keep going back to it for years and revive its happy memories each time you reread it. Just think of how much happiness might accumulate there.

However you do it, the objective is to raise your frequency so you remain at peace, regardless of whatever hysteria, hate and anger go on around you. Become empowered with gratitude to rise above the ego's vortex of despair. Remember, you're a broadcasting station that's always casting abroad whatever you put in there.

Make it a vibe of gratitude.  
Start today.

It's easy.   

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If you are interested in reading more posts related to this subject, go to:

Let Your Light Shine. https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/let-your-light-shine  

What is Happiness? https://digitalbloggers.com/book-reviews/what-is-happiness

Raise Your Vibe https://digitalbloggers.com/book-reviews/a-higher-vibe    

Or see all blog links at https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/ep-blog-posts  

They are all written to inspire, inform, challenge and even amuse.
 

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QUOTES ON GRATITUDE

  "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." -William Arthur Ward

·  "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." -Oprah Winfrey

·  "No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude." -Alfred North Whitehead

·  "We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction." -H.A. Ironside

·  "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."--Marcel Proust

·  "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." -Meister Eckhart

·  "The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields, and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it." -Michael Josephson

·  "Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy." -Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

·  "I may not be where I want to be but I'm thankful for not being where I used to be." -Habeeb Akande

·  "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend." -Melody Beattie

·  "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." -John F. Kennedy

·  "Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation." -Brian Tracy

·  "Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy." -Jacques Maritain

·  "At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." -Albert Schweitzer

·  "When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity." -Elie Wiesel

·  "Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance." -Eckhart Tolle

·  "If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get." -Frank A. Clark

·  "If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." -Gerald Good

·  "Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau

·  "Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses." -Alphonse Karr

·  "Make it a habit to tell people 'thank you.' To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it." -Ralph Marston

·  "Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." -Voltaire

·  "When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

·  "'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding." -Alice Walker

·  "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."-Epictetus

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PENDING PUBLICATION OF ELYSIUM’S PASSAGE SERIES

                                          Amazon in 2024

 

The Ascent: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

The Summit: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

Quantum Leaps: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

Surreal Adventures: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

Mystical Romance: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

The Elixir: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

The Return: Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage

 

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1. The Ascent is the first novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage that’s foundational to everything that happens in the following narratives that embark on an adventure that will surprise and delight the reader like no other book.

It all begins with an extreme adventure of climbing a remote and challenging mountain somewhere in the Andean Mountains. Just as James, the protagonist, is about to reach the mountain summit, he falls into an abyss that leaves him in a coma for almost a year.

After being airlifted by a forestry helicopter and flown back to London, where his body remains for almost a year. Eventually, he learns it was not him but his body that was rescued. Several days later, without understanding what happened, he continues to climb to the summit in an alternate dimension of higher consciousness.

Fortuitously, he meets two adventurers on the summit ridge who are no longer of this world. After that, his surreal life leads him to several new adventures in the subsequent chronicles that include a rich mix of adventure, romance, and fantasy, along with profound discussions of philosophy, spirituality and the afterlife.

 
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2. The  Summit, the second novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, carries on where James, the narrator and protagonist, is taught more about a multidimensional reality that he finds difficult to comprehend.

Not only does he find he’s not as clever as he imagined, but his off-world companions on the summit demonstrate that much of what he believed about life was not just parochial but wrong. At first, he finds this difficult to comprehend since their teachings are contrary to his limited understanding of non-material reality.

After being tricked into teleporting off a ledge where he was trapped, James becomes aware of the new reality that makes him capable of far more adventures than could have ever been experienced previously in his physical body back home.

Now, if only he would win over the only woman in this life who matters, the nurse on the other side of the veil, who continually demonstrates her unconditional love toward his healing.

Warning: This book may also open the reader’s eyes to a much vaster reality than most might be aware. As with the other Chronicles, there are discussions of philosophy, the spiritual afterlife and what might seem like fantasy.

 
 

3. Quantum Leaps is the third novel in Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, where James, the philosopher-protagonist, teleports back to London to visit his body and make contact with the special nurse taking care of it in his absence. Immediately, he feels an inexplicable spiritual bond with her for reasons he remains unaware of.

Now aroused by a renewed interest in matters of love, the beginnings of a relationship begin to emerge as he attempts to reach across the chasm of their worlds. But it’s not until the fifth novel, Mystical Romance, that he encounters her in a way that he finds difficult to believe.

However, before that can happen, there is much about his failed relationships that must be resolved before he is ready to move forward in his new life in Elysium’s Passage. It is during this time he christens his comatose body as the fall guy since it took the fall for him down the abyss so he could learn the lessons he’s now learning.

That will be the next focus of his life, where in his next Surreal Adventures, he is given virtual lessons to release many of his past beliefs about life.

 
 

4. Surreal Adventures is the fourth novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, which finds James, the protagonist and narrator, escorted by his companions to a remote South Pacific Island, where he is left to reflect on what he’s learned.

During the next forty days, he battles the demons of his past as he works through some rather painful issues from his early youth. Here, in a tropical storm, he encounters an eery suspended spectre of the one he loved yet still resents for abandoning him as a child.

After this, he achieves peace of mind and is ready to return to his lodge to join his off-world companions on the Andes summit. However, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any stranger, a sixteenth-century sea captain sails his ancient ‘ghost’ ship onto the beach. Together, they sail off on a mystical ocean voyage to a couple of virtual islands supposedly in the South Pacific, where he witnesses and, at times, participates in several important life lessons.

Near the end, these encounters help prepare him for a new challenge within the interior of a mountain, where he falls deep into a dark tomb of fear. After being rescued by a mysterious stranger wielding his Excaliber, he continues on to where his life is about to be transformed in the following chronicle, Mystical Romance.

 
 

5. Mystical Romance is the fifth chronicle in Elysium’s Passage, which will surprise the reader with a romantic twist of how love is expressed in higher realms. From this lofty perspective, everything about intimacy is understood as within, so without.

After escaping his tomb, James, the narrator and protagonist, makes his way through a maze of tunnels until he arrives at a large oak door, which he opens with the golden key he had been given. There, he steps into Elysium’s Passage’s Great Hall, where his life and recent achievements are celebrated now that his eyes have been opened to perceive a fascinating interior world of wonderment… and romance.

To say more might risk diminishing the multitude of delightful surprises as circumstances begin to open to The Elixir, where James is about to re-enter his earthly body’s existence.

 
 

6. The Elixir is the sixth chronicle of the Elysium’s Passage series that prepares James, the narrator-protagonist, to awaken and return to his body in London. Before that can happen, however, his off-worlder friend presents a mysterious equation enshrouded with a light code frequency that will stimulate multidimensional DNA strands within him.

Much of this narration is centred in London, where his nurse unknowingly becomes involved in how the Elixir’s equation finds its way from a taxi cab driver to higher echelons of science. There are many twists in how she unwittingly brings the Elixir to the attention of mathematicians and physicists, after which they eventually discover how to code the equation into a laser ray to stimulate his fall-guy body into full consciousness.

Ostensibly a new Adam, he is destined to return humanity to a higher multidimensional existence. How this happens is filled with intrigue, as is his shocking return to his earthly body.

 
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7. The Return is the seventh and last chronicle in the series where James, the narrator and protagonist, has re-emerged from Elysium’s Passage as he readjusts to life in the third dimension. Many of the events experienced in the previous novels are tied together in an exciting, fast-moving, action-packed narrative over several countries.

 At first, it seems all memories have been lost, with his fall guy’s brain not being aware of what happened to him while in his coma. As a consequence, it takes a while for him to be convinced he had been out of his earthly body for almost a year.

Through some rather unexpected events and evidence, along with his girlfriend’s urging, he is brought to an awareness of much of what occurred. It takes a while for his mind to catch up with the changes made in his heart during his stay in the alternate realm. But after experiencing several harsh realities, he discovers what he became within while out of his body. Gradually, he comes to understand the many challenges that lie ahead for him in fulfilling his future mission on Earth.

This book is filled with adventure, romance and personal intrigue that ties together all six previous narratives of the Elysium’s Passage series.