In this season of Thanksgiving and gratitude, we pause to give thanks for the many blessings that we enjoy. While there is much that may come to mind when we think of what we are grateful for (such as family, friends, home, community and our physical comforts), there is much that we may tend to overlook and take for granted.
Many go through life with blinders on. Their view of life being limited and narrow, they tend to see only the obvious. They may move through their entire life unaware that there is much more to life than they realize.
We can grow our gratitude and appreciation as we come to embrace all of life and all that it offers to us, including those aspects of our lives that are the most obvious as well as those aspects that had gone unnoticed.
Being Present… Choosing Gratitude
Gratitude is a choice; and there are many ways, including simple specific practices, that can help us to cultivate it. Gratitude begins with awareness. We can begin to consciously cultivate gratitude as we open our hearts to life, as we take notice and become more engaged and present in each moment of life’s unfolding. Active engagement in life by being mindfully present to it helps to bring purpose, meaning and happiness to our lives. We move to a deeper appreciation for all of life (including ourselves) as we engage more deeply and fully with it.
As our awareness expands and deepens, our innate curiosity about life intensifies; and our curiosity often opens us to experiences of awe and wonder. Curiosity, awe and wonder are natural states that are enhanced as we honor our inner longing for deeper connection with our world. It is our expanded consciousness that opens us to see beyond ourselves and to marvel at the mysteries of the cosmos and how we as humans fit into the larger context of it all.
We come to realize that we are part of something much greater than we can comprehend imagine. This is the great Mystery that is not ours to grasp at this point in our unfolding, if ever. While we cannot grasp it, we stand in awe and wonder as we ponder it….and our hearts open in gratitude.
Cultivating Gratitude Through Our Connection with the Natural World
As humans we naturally want to understand more about ourselves and the natural world around us. We long to feel fully connected. We know innately that we are one with our world. As our awareness deepens, we realize that everything is connected at some level and that we all exist in webs of relationships. We come to see the unity of all that is.
Remembering our innate connection with the natural world opens us to appreciate it and to feel grateful for it. When we make the time to connect with the natural world, it is as if we are joined, heart to heart, whole in the great love that connects us all. Seeing ourselves as one with nature, we live in the mystery that is life. Because we live in the mystery, we may experience times of awe and wonder at the unknowable vastness and magnificence that is our universe.
In these moments, we also realize we are connected to something much bigger than ourselves. Rather than shrink in fear of it, we open ourselves to marvel at it in wonder and curiosity. We feel it is by grace that we are present to witness and participate in such wonders…and for this we feel grateful.
When you think of experiencing awe and wonder in nature, you may bring to mind spectacular and breathtaking aspects of nature; however, when you experience life through the expanded consciousness of unity and connection, you can experience awe and wonder in the smallest, seemingly mundane aspects of nature. It is really a matter of our putting these in the context of the whole and unimaginably vast universe in which we live.
As we come into deeper awareness of our connection to the earth and the gifts of the natural world, our hearts open in love. Immersed in nature, we can open our awareness to the gracious gifts that nature continually gives us. The giving earth is our home. It is the place where we experience a deep sense of true belonging. Our hearts beat in resonance with the heart of the earth when we see it as a living system that sustains us. And as we receive with open hearts the bountiful gifts of the earth, and remember our connection with it, we naturally want to give in return. We begin to participate in the natural flow of life. We understand that we are stewards of the natural world, nurturing and caring for it even as we enjoy its gifts.
We have been given the gift of life on earth, our home to live in and care for while we live briefly on this planet. Our stewardship responsibilities invite us to consciously care for the earth, so that we and future generations can enjoy the beauty and bounty of our earth home.
This Thanksgiving may we open our hearts in gratitude. While we remain ever grateful for the everyday blessings that we enjoy, may we open ourselves to the remembrance of the truth of of our being: that we are integral to the wholeness of all that is; and our experience of life is enriched as we come to understand ourselves in the greater context of this magnificent world.
Happy Thanksgiving from True Center!
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