Gratitude and Money

First off, I apologize for not yet writing and publishing the second part to my last post. It wasn't posted to Facebook yet, but it is published here (Blogger). I'm still wrapping my head around that whole topic.

So, anyway, gratitude and money. Or money and gratitude. I've recently started a book called "The Magic" by Rhonda Byrne. It's about acquiring a real working attitude of gratitude in my life. Gratitude is a powerful tool not only for recovering people but for everybody. To be really, really grateful for life and all that comes with it is, to me, success. "The Magic" gives exercises to supercharge gratitude and create almost immediate change in one's life. 

The whole book is premised on Matthew 13:12, in which Jesus states, "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." (NIV) Now, at first glance, this seems very unfair! But remember that Jesus was about teaching how the Universe works, and much of His teachings concerned human attitudes. When read in the context of gratitude, this verse makes perfect sense - Whoever is grateful for what they have will find even more to be grateful for, and whoever is ungrateful will lose even what they have. Remember that what we focus on grows and grows, so if I begin to focus on what I do have, with an attitude of gratitude, I will find more about which to be grateful. On the other hand, if I focus my attention on what I lack, I will find even more lack. I've lived in both situations.

Even a person who has seemingly nothing can find, when they look, something for which to be grateful. If you are reading this, you have something for which to be grateful - you are alive, you can read, and you're reading something I wrote, which is really special! There's 3 things right there.

Today's lesson or exercise from "The Magic" is on money. Lately I've been doing really well in the money area, and I've known for a long time that my attitude regarding money and life itself affects my finances. But today's lesson showed me something I hadn't really considered much lately, and it showed me that I was raised with a lot more than I thought I had. In other words, today's lesson shifted my focus a bit on growing up. Here is what Ms. Byrne asked:

• Did you always have food to eat?
• Did you live in a home?
• How did you travel to school each day? Did you have schoolbooks, school lunches, and all the things you needed for school?
• Did you go on any vacations when you were a child?
• What were the most exciting birthday gifts you received when you were a child?
• Did you have a bike, toys, or a pet?
• Did you have clothes as you grew so quickly from one size to the next?
• Did you go to the movies, play sports, learn a musical instrument, or pursue a hobby?
• Did you go to the doctor and take medicine when you were not well?
• Did you go to the dentist?
• Did you have essential items that you used every day, like your toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and shampoo?
• Did you travel in a car?
• Did you watch television, make phone calls, use lights, electricity, and water? (R. Byrne, The Magic, 2012, pp. 62-63)

So, as I read this list this morning, I was amazed. I answered 'yes' to each one! That's over 13 things for which I can be grateful! And Ms. Byrne points out that all of those things I had growing up took money.

I was not a grateful child growing up - statement of fact, no judgement either way. I grew up in a nice small non-integrated community, with both my middle-class parents who both worked, and I didn't know anything about material lack. I didn't experience it, and 99% of the people with whom I grew up did not experience it. My experience growing up was normal to me, and I really didn't know any differently. Nowadays, I know people who grew up in the chaos of poverty and instability; back then, I really didn't. Because I was unaware that a lot of people spent their childhoods in situations that were much, much different than mine, I came to adulthood with an attitude of entitlement, which did not help me lead a good life - I had no real appreciation of what I actually had.

In my adult life I've learned, firsthand, about poverty, both material and spiritual. If I were to apply those questions to my life today, I could not answer 'yes' to all of them. And that's ok - abundance is creeping back into my life as I'm learning to change my attitudes and approach to life.

The main spiritual attitude to which I aspire is that life is all good. The spiritual groups that I follow teach this, and it makes more sense to me than the idea of a deity that hands out random blessings and random punishments, that loves some of his creation and hates the rest. With this attitude, the responsibility for whether or not I lead a blessed life rests on my shoulders, not God's. Am I avoiding and escaping what comes to me in this lifetime, or am I embracing it? Am I looking for what I hate about Life, or am I looking for things and people to love? Did God create a miserable, useless, waste of oxygen, or did It create a wonderful copy of Itself that is currently coming into his own? These are questions which I encounter every day, and my answer is determined in and by my actions and attitudes. I work every day toward living more in the reality of who I really am, rather than the illusion that was given me and that I've fostered over the years.

But anyway, it is not necessary to believe as I believe in order to harness the power of gratitude. All it takes is to be willing and open to see life differently, and to focus on the abundance in my life rather than the lack, and to develop the feeling of gratitude. When my vision is wide, I feel abundantly blessed; when it is narrow, I can feel cursed. I learn each day ways to improve my vision, and I do feel grateful to be alive today and to be experiencing life as I am today. I am filled with hope and optimism. 

Namasté,

Ken