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.