Grateful Love

In my last post, I talked about the poor week I had the week before last. It was just one of those weeks where it seemed like everything was going wrong. I had hoped that it would end on Saturday (the day of my last post). It didn't but last week was not nearly as bad. There were just a few lingering events that I chose to view as reminders.

On Wednesday last week, just as things were really feeling "normal" again, I received one of the many daily inspirational e-mails that I have subscribed to. In this case it was from the website of Abraham-Hicks. They are the author of a book I mentioned in a recent post - "Ask and it is Given." I'm not going to try and explain who "they" are. You have to check it out yourself. I will say that it's provocative and at a minimum, if you can be open, it is enlightening. At the heart of Abraham's teachings is the guiding principle of "well being." Essentially, at least in my eyes, it is about living your life in a way that feeds a sense of well being in yourself (and ultimately to others through your own sense of well being).

So anyway, the daily e-mail I receive is always an excerpt from a workshop that the Hicks do across the country. The excerpt is generally a quote from Abraham. The one I received on Wednesday was this:

"Don't try to recreate peak experiences. Instead, just accept them as the gift that they are, and don't beat up on yourself for not being able to stay there. Because if you stayed there, they wouldn't be peak experiences. They would be normal, every day in time hum drum boring, experiences. So, savor the peak experiences and compliment yourself upon your achieving of them, and expect more of them, and leave everything else out of the equation."

Although this is not what I had just experienced, the interesting thing to me was that it reminded me that the "valley" experiences are also essentially the same kind of thing that Abraham speaks of. They are reminders that life is good and that we must be grateful for ALL time that we have to experience. Some of that time will be challenging and some of it will be sad and some of it will be boring. Other times will be exciting or easy or full of pleasure. But regardless, we must be grateful. Because that is what is all about. Being grateful for the opportunity to experience whatever it is that life is giving us and being grateful to have the ability to guide our experience through the way in which we view our experience.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by gratitude. Sometimes I am not. The more I remember to be grateful and to view things from a perspective of gratitude, the more my life and the people and experiences in my life, shine from the warmth of love. Because ultimately, gratitude is about loving everything and everyone. I have noticed that when I forget to be grateful, and to view my life experience from that perspective, it's easy to do things that don't make me feel good. The kinds of things that take away from my well being. But when I remember, I find myself walking around with a little smile on my face.