Gratitude Creates More for Which to be Grateful

Just for today, be grateful.  For there is so much to be grateful for!  Gratitude is the easiest way for me to raise my vibrations.  As one of the Reiki principles, it is a cornerstone to my healing practice.  A grateful heart heals so much easier and faster than a resentful one.  It is so much more resilient against dis-ease.

Gratitude is easy for me at this point in my life.  I am doing well.  I feel financially secure.  I’ve finished paying off a reliable vehicle.  I love my home.  I am in a loving relationship with my best friend.  Our kids are all healthy.  Life is good and gratitude comes easy. 

I feel like my resting point has become a place of gratitude, interrupted by small moments of stress, anger, or worry from time to time.  It used to be very much the opposite.  Stress was my natural state, interrupted by small moments of joy and gratitude.  I think that to look at my life now, one might think that I am grateful because all this good has come into my life.  And they would be right, except I believe that it is a wonderful cycle that began when gratitude helped me bring this good about in the first place. 

I used to be miserable.  I was always in pain from Fibromyalgia.  Paying bills was a juggling act.  My relationships with men were toxic.  I was always saying things like, “if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all” and “if it’s not one thing going wrong, it’s another.”  Life sucked and that is all I expected of it.  I was unhappy and resentful, and life just kept giving me more to be unhappy and resentful about.

Things began to turn around for me when I found Reiki and started practicing the principles.  In trying to practice gratitude each day in accordance with the principles, I started actively looking for things to be grateful for.  It hurt to walk when I first started practicing, but I COULD walk.  I was in sick and in pain, but my kids were healthy.  Financially, I had always struggled, but I always found a way to keep bills paid.  I stopped focusing so much on all that was wrong and turned my focus to the small, less obvious things that were good. 

The more I focused on those little things I had to be grateful for, the more they began to grow.  It was magical.  It is still magical, as my blessings continue to grow with my gratitude.  The little things became big things.  The stuff I stressed about began to fade away.  Personal disasters happened less and less.  Life is good, it is wonderful, and that is what I expect of it.  And every day I am in awe of it’s wonder and filled with gratitude. 

Holding Space to Heal

For a long time, I was confused about exactly what it meant to hold space for another person.  As a healer, though, this is essential to what I do.  I hold a space for others to heal themselves.  But what does that really mean?

To me, to hold space means holding the whole, healthy, and perfect image of the person I wish to bring healing to.  Our intentions, our beliefs, are what bring about our healing.  It is hard for someone who is suffering to believe that they are whole, healthy, and perfect and that life is good and full of abundance.  The more a person is suffering, the harder it becomes for them to hold that belief that will bring them healing.  So, I hold it for them.  I hold a space for healing, while they feel and go through whatever they need to feel and go through.

I have gotten really good at holding space for friends, clients, and strangers.  I am still learning to hold space for myself and the people closest to me.  It is harder for me to detach from my own suffering or those that love.  Little by little, I am getting there, at the time of this writing, however, I am still only able to hold on to it for moment at a time.  That is okay though, I have a community I can turn to.

When I am too close the situation and unable to detach and hold that space of perfect wholeness and health for the people I love so much, it used to bring me great frustration that ultimately brought down my own vibrations and just made everything worse.  I have learned to let go of the need to do it on my own though.  I can practice detachment at my own pace and trust others to hold space for me and my family when needed.  I know I can ask my community and my church and people will hold space for me.  This is one of the great benefits of our universal connection with life. 

We are never alone in anything.  Remembering our perfection is what brings us healing, but when we cannot remember, others can remember it for us.  We can do the same for them.  This is all that ever happens in healing, really.  Someone must hold space for healing by holding the image of health in their thoughts and emotions.