Look at yourself.

A good, honest look.

Do you have enough?

Do you have enough money? Recognition? Love? Friends? Anything?

If you do, you can go away now.

But if you want something more, how do you get it?

By changing the way you think.

Gratitude is not a secret any more, and it’s not the little secret in the title of this post, but for the uninitiated, I’ll write a bit about the power of gratitude. Those of you who already know the power of gratitude can skip the next few paragraphs or so. (Although you might still learn something new.) This is a long post so you might want to Save This Page at Delicious, in case you can’t finish it.

Socially

Think of the last time someone was truly grateful for something you did for them. Not out of habit, or because they want to get into your good books, but true gratefulness. Someone who acknowledges your contributions - someone who holds it close to their hearts. Does it makes you want to give them even more?

It is the same for everyone. Apply gratitude to every human interaction you have; from the big to the small and even things that you take for granted. A client pays you on time? The waiter today is polite? Express heartfelt gratitude. You don’t have to turn into some gushing wimp; a nod, gesture or word would do just as well. The key word is heartfelt. Then watch as more of it comes your way; and your path through life is eased.

Psychologically

The next level would be gratitude towards everything that is good or simply working in your life. Again, regardless of how big or small you think it is, and especially everything you take for granted. Remember the saying “You don’t know what you have until you lose it?”

Acknowledge it while it is in your life and the chances of you losing it will be far less. For example: Your screen is working; otherwise you can’t read this. Have you been grateful for it? Imagine yourself if your machine broke down.

Psychologically, this is great training. It keeps you focused on what you have, and not what you lack. It is a great way to boost your optimism if you are optimistic; and shift you out of pessimism if you are not.

If you can stick with this practice long enough for it to become a subconscious habit, your happiness will be boosted greatly. I believe once you can keep an attitude of gratitude towards everything, there is nothing that can upset you. I’ve been training my mind in this way intensely for the past few weeks - and my happiness is far more steady and unshakeable then it was.

By being grateful, you are training your subconscious to guide you into getting more of what you want. An estimated 90 per cent of our mental activity (and hence power) is subconscious; this is the reason hypnotism is so powerful. It goes straight into the subconscious. (Why do you think hypno-therapists can charge so much?)

Physically

This applies on a physical level as well. Your eyes are working to read this, or your ears are working to hear this via a screen reader; have you expressed gratitude?

On the physical level, I’ve read that your cells respond to gratitude. They are alive, and aware, although not in the way that we are. And just like anything that is alive, they respond well to true gratitude.

Like always, focus on the good in your body, not the bad. If you are sick, don’t focus on the disease. Focus on what your body can do, not what it can’t. Even if you are bedridden, for example, be grateful for the fact you can breathe. It’ll keep you breathing for that much longer.

This attitude is hard work, especially if you have been (like most people) thinking negatively out of habit. I recovered real fast from a recent flu by being grateful for my health.

Metaphysically

On the metaphysical level, this is called the Law of Gratitude. Sanaya Roman in her book, Living with Joy, states the Universe is reacts to gratitude on an energy level. It will give you more of what you are truly grateful for, just like a loving parent. This can be gratitude for anything - for the money, or love, or friendship which you received. So thank the Universe as well as the person who gives it to you.

I’ve been experimenting with this for blog traffic and earnings and it seems to work, but it’s nothing earth-shattering so far. So I am not qualified to go more into this right now. But do try it out yourself - it is a well established universal law, just like the law of gravity (except it is much more subtle).

So what is this secret?

You might have heard all this stuff before. It is nothing new to those who have been in Personal Development for some time.

So what exactly is this secret that I mentioned at the start?

True gratitude is being grateful for even the bad things that come into your life.

“But you just said the universe will give you more of what you are grateful for!”

That is the result of a wrong mindset - one that thinks the world is working against you. You believe in an unfriendly universe, which is false.

If you can understand that the universe is working for you, then you’ll realise events that are painful - then, or even now - actually occurred for your benefit.

How can this be good for me?

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Now, I know that this sounds like a bunch of crock, especially when you are still reeling from a fresh setback or blow.

“Try telling that to the man whose wife committed suicide. Or the crying mother who lost a son in the war!”

I used to think the same way. Nietzsche misses a crucial component though. Just because something bad happened to you doesn’t mean you’ll get stronger automatically. It only works for you if you treat yourself properly after the injury.

The tearing of your heart

Let me use weight-lifting as an analogy. You use weights to oppose your muscles, forcing them to grow. It is the same for every part of you - your mind, your emotions, and your spirit.

All these bad events provide a weight for that part of you to grow. Did your parents treat you bad? Did you fall in love with someone abusive? It is a weight for your emotions to push against so you get stronger in that area.

But like any gym rat knows, the weight-lifting is just a portion of it. What do I mean?

Here’s the simplified version: Did you know that doing weights to build muscle creates microscopic tears in your muscle fibres during the gym session?

The muscle growth doesn’t happen in the gym; it happens after. Your body repairs the tears caused by the weight-lifting and in the process adds more muscle tissue than was originally there. This only happens if you look after yourself outside the gym with proper sleep and nutrition. Without those two, the muscles won’t repair properly, and you’re actually worse off for having done the weights.

So: What is the equivalent of rest and nutrition for your heart and soul? Rest… and gratitude.

What doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger if you don’t learn from it. And to learn from it, you have to recognise it as a lesson in life. And if you truly recognise it as a lesson, then you’d be grateful for it. And being grateful for it is the final step that allows the damage to finally close up and heal - and get stronger.

Does this apply to even the most horrendous crimes? Rape, beatings? Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t suffered anything like that, but at the risk of being hated, I would say yes.

WARNING: Remember that being grateful for it doesn’t mean you are asking for more! It does not mean you want it to happen again! It does not mean that what happened was right, or that you enjoyed it! It is just a way of healing the wounds!

How can I be grateful for this!

“How can anyone expect me to be grateful for what HE did to me?” I hear you say. “If you saw what SHE did to me, you wouldn’t be talking like this!”

No matter what has happened, you have learnt something from it. Perhaps because of this event, you have learnt not to let it happen again. Perhaps in the future you were to meet someone who beats you to death. But the beatings you suffered in the past have made you wary of such people; and when you come across that person, you manage to avoid him or her.

There is no way of knowing - there isn’t any magical genie that shows up and says “Well done for avoiding that man, he might have battered you to death.” You might even have met and avoided this criminal already. But you didn’t know, and you might still think you had suffered in the past for nothing.

Again, if your pain is recent, this might be hard to swallow. But take it from a man who has been there. In the bigger picture of things, the world is working for you.

You are being prepared for what you want

I’m going off topic, but I’ll throw something in here. Sometimes things happen for reasons that are not obvious.

What do I mean? You will only get (and keep) what you are ready for. That is a psychological truth; there is no way around this statement.

To make you ready for something that you want, the Universe has to throw weights at you to build your emotional and spiritual muscle.

Maybe you wanted a new lover, or you wanted to be a millionaire. But you were not mature enough to handle your dream lover properly, or to handle a million dollars without losing it in a day. So the Universe puts obstacles in your way to make you grow. Your heart tears along the way and it hurts, but it grows back stronger and stronger until, one day, you are ready for what you want. Then it appears.

Now, back to that old worry: If gratitude gives you more of what you are grateful for, does that mean being grateful for something bad will bring you more of it?

If the bad happens for you to evolve, then once you have learnt your lesson, it will no longer happen. Lessons will still come, for one can never stop growing, but the more you learn the less jarring the lessons have to be. This means that as you progress, the lessons will come easily and joyfully rather than through pain and fire.

My story

To explain this, here’s my story: I tried going into business not long after I finished university. But the business world was harsher then I expected; liars, cheaters, shifty clients, abusive clients and so on. I was emotionally weak and frail - such people made me upset and disillusioned. My earnings suffered, and I was tempted to live off government welfare for the rest of my life.

The final straw came when even my girlfriends lied and abused to me. It took me years to get over one heartbreak. As a result, I suffered on many levels - in my career, in my social life, in my family relationships, and so on.

But after I began personal development, I began to heal these wounds. I became emotionally much stronger; abusive clients and so on don’t affect me beyond a few minutes.

That made me ready to take on much more profitable contracts. Before, I would have subconsciously held myself back from fear (the worst of all negative emotions). My income has since tripled.

And I’m not even sure that’s the final result of the painful lessons in my younger years; there’s so much more ahead of me that I can’t see. All seemingly unrelated events do build up to something, so there is most likely something even better waiting for me in the future.

The same goes for my happiness and inner peace. At the depths of my depression, they were so broken that there was almost nothing left. After I began my personal development, did I grow back to my old level? No. Just like torn muscles with proper care, my inner peace and consciousness grew back much stronger then they ever were.

In conclusion

Being grateful for everything that happens, good or bad, is one of the biggest shifts in the way you think. Gratitude for the good will give you more of it. Gratitude for the bad is what you need to learn and grow. Without it, the tears in your heart and mind will always be there.