Inspirational Phrases: The Bigger Picture behind Gratitude
Posted by Louise on Feb 18, 2010
Here’s an Inspirational Phrase about Gratitude by Findhorn’s spiritual icon, Eileen Caddy*.
“Gratitude helps you to grow and expand: gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.” Eileen Caddy, MBE (1917 – 2006)
Right now my life seems to be getting faster and faster. Success experts warn of this. The more we achieve, the more opportunities that open up. The more one does, the bigger the stakes are. I am inundated with things to do. So much so that I am at risk of losing track of the purpose behind my targeted activity: to make consistent progress on my journey towards achieving my best-possible life. I am the author of my Ideal Life. As author, surely I get to determine where I go with my plot?
Today I researched this inspirational phrase to get me back in touch with my inner core, my true and important values. Why be hugely successful if it isn’t fun? Why be enormously productive on external fronts and ignore my inner voices? Right now my inner voices are asking me to calm down and take stock. I want to step off the accelerator a bit and take time to be grateful for all the wonderful things that are happening.
Back to gratitude. Living a life filled with gratitude is an expansive space to occupy. Gratitude has a strong spiritual element to it. Gratitude opens my emotional self to high vibrations such as experiencing joy, elation, hope, expectation, trust.
Psychological research into gratitude indicates that individuals who foster the state of gratitude and who exhibit gratitude as a personality trait are genuinely happier, less prone to stress and depression, better sleepers, better able to cope. High gratitude individuals have a higher quality of life which is directly correlated with their gratitude-attitude.
Duality: Gratitude and resentment occupy opposing sides of the coin. The higher we are on the gratitude side of the equation, the more we focus on being at one with ourselves and the universe. When we occupy the ingratitude side of the coin, our attention is on what is missing from our lives. We experience resentment, lack and frustration as primary emotions.
This is the imbalanced state (e.g. ingratitude) I currently seek to distance myself from. With all my emphasis on what I must do, what needs to be done, what I can’t do because I don’t have the time, knowledge or means… well I quickly start to generate feelings of resentment (definitely not a gratitude state!) until these dominate my emotions.
Now I need to consciously go within and reconnect with what is real and important to me, locate the goodness, the generosity, the harvest I am currently reaping. Finding 100 reasons to be thankful, and logging them in my journal, is but a small price to pay for the rich emotions that a ‘gratitude attitude’ generates. It is time to step off the treadmill of satisfying external demands (which are of fleeting and questionable importance right now) and reconnect with my Inner Self.
I am thankful that this inspirational phrase about gratitude has opened my mind to the psychological benefits of experiencing gratitude, and opened my eyes to the opposite ends of the gratitude-resentment scale. The more gratitude I feel, the further away I move from lack, resentment, and frustration.
* Eileen Caddy under the spotlight:
Eileen Caddy was a co-founder of the Findhorn Foundation which has been dubbed “the Vatican of the New Age”. Eileen Caddy, a spiritual leader and New Age author, was awarded an MBE by Queen Elisabeth II in 2004 for her services to spiritual enquiry. She mastered the art of ‘going within’ and ‘listening to her inner voice’ for guidance. In 2001 Channel 4 deemed her to be one of Britain’s most spiritually influential individuals.
