The Power Of Gratitude
Curiosity Cultivates Appreciation, The Fool Is Thirsty, Attitude Of Gratitude
Happy Friday — I hope it’s a joyful one!
Today’s newsletter is about cultivating the power of gratitude in your life. I’m grateful that many of you tune in every Friday to read my ideas and those of others I share. If this is your first reading of Live Free, thank you for stopping by. I hope to chat with you in the comments.
Gratitude Trivia:
Practicing gratitude has many benefits. What do you think the missing benefit is from the list below? The answer will be revealed at the end of the newsletter.
Improves self-esteem
Enhances empathy
Strengthens relationships
Curious
A reflection about the role curiosity plays in cultivating an attitude of gratitude:
Disinterest creates dissent in the present moment. Curiosity creates contentment with the now.
Like any skill, curiosity needs practice. The muscle of curiosity never tires. Each moment presents you with an opportunity to go one more rep.
The ego will do its utmost to fool you from this reality. The stronger you build the muscle of curiosity, the weaker the ego’s shield becomes.
When the ego’s shield weakens, the gratitude you experience for every moment strengthens.
Curiosity cultivates appreciation.
Conscious
Artist, Bob Marley on recognizing the abundance of your true nature:
“In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty.” - Bob Marley
When you operate from an internal place of scarcity i.e. lack, not enough, or wanting — your external world reflects this thirst.
Scarcity cultivates an internal environment consisting of jealousy, distrust, animosity, comparison, blame, and desperation.
An unhealthy internal environment can manifest itself externally by:
Experiencing conflictive relationships
Withdrawing from society
Forming unhealthy habits
Neglecting self-care
Repeating destructive behavioural patterns
Gratitude is the antidote to scarcity.
An abundant state already has everything it needs.
Abundance isn’t about ownership. It is knowing that you are already enough regardless of your external circumstances.
It recognizes that nothing on the outside can alter this knowingness. Sure, the living experience can be made easier by favourable external conditions, but abundance is unconditional. In this state of being, your happiness is not dependent on the uncontrollable.
Status quo can trick us into believing that happiness arrives when we accumulate material wealth or reach man-made milestones.
If this is the case, why are so many materially “rich” people unhappy?
The most content people appreciate what they have while not wasting every ounce of their energy holding on either.
Thick layers of conditioning can make it difficult to grasp this truth initially.
Constant societal striving for “more” creating unhealthy norms
Hardwired unpleasant stories repeated internally over time
Generational and individual trauma leading to feelings of “less than”
It takes hard work, patience, and nurturing to cultivate a crop. Your mind is the same. If a farmer desires his crop to flourish, he must tend to it every day.
In truth, there is no end point. No arrival. It’s a constant work in progress.
Change
A quote from the Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, and an exercise to cultivate an attitude of gratitude:
Quote:
“Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.”
- Marcus Aurelius
Source: Meditations
~~~
Exercise:
Step 1: Identify something in your life you are treating passively / not actively expressing gratitude towards.
Step 2: Reflect on how different your life would be if you didn’t have it.
Step 3: Describe the benefits you would experience by actively nurturing it.
Step 4: What is a small step you will take to actively appreciate what you have?
This could be anything. From people to belongings. For me it was as simple as taking care of my skin.
The point of this exercise is to highlight how gratitude is simply a matter of perspective.
If you want to get in touch with your response, or would like my support in processing this exercise — you can respond directly to this email, or message me on Substack Chat.
Live Free,
Niall
P.S. To ensure you always receive my emails, please mark this address as ‘not spam’ or add it to your address book.
Gratitude Trivia Answer
Improves sleep quality and duration.
What other benefits do you experience from practicing gratitude?
Share yours in the comments.
If you enjoy reading my work, please consider sharing it with friends! Or click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
Hi Niall,
Thanks for your thoughts about gratitude as it relates to curiosity. For me, gratitude is rooted in my ability to stop ruminating and look around me, to notice my environment and what does one of three things:
1. Uplift - elevate my spirits, instill a sense of wonder and awe;
2. Encourage - renew my strength to persevere in the good things I love;
3. Calm - anything, usually something beautiful in nature, that centers me.
I know many call this mindfulness. I have read about it, but I like to think of it as attunement. Being aware and engaged in the present moment. I do struggle with that, but gratitude helps balance the natural pessimism of my personality.
I'm better at writing than speaking aloud -though I do love to sing, go figure... - so I journal every morning after méditation and write, among other stuff, 3 things I am grateful for such as my favorite T-shirt, medical care access, running hot water, my actual financial abondance, butterflies.... And I motivate why I'm grateful for it focusing on the emotion that rises, very close to love actually.
It has now become a reflex in my life, I thank the Universe several times a day in my head whenever something nice, even the smallest one, happens to me. Thank you for allowing me to share that. Lots of love.