Why gratitude is the best game in town

“The universe is programmed for your joy.”–Marianne Williamson

As a devotee of A Course in Miracles, I go through its 365 lessons every year, starting January 1. Right now, the lessons are teaching me about grievances and how every time I have one, I block the light, I block the miracles, I block the truth.

I have come to the conclusion that the only problem (or grievance) I ever have is thinking I have a problem. Which is why gratitude is such a holy practice.

Not only does giving thanks move me onto a different frequency and change the lens through which I see the world, but it changes the world itself. It changes material objects. It changes the events in my life.

When I focus on grievances, the light cannot get through. Reality cannot get through. All I can see is a hologram of my grievances which, as anyone peering inside my head can tell you, is not a place anyone would want to pitch a tent.

The universe is alive, constantly changing, constantly in motion. And we participate in its evolution. All my grievances do is make more grievances.

At the 1927 Solvay Conference in Brussels, attended by dozens of future Nobel prize winners, physicists Werner Heisenberg and Neils Bohr made the case that even scientific research wasn’t completely pure and well, scientific because the experimenter, the observer, affects the experiment through his beliefs and expectations.

Did you get that? We shape the forces of the universe with our thoughts and beliefs. So, when we look for all that’s going right, we animate that superposition into our lives. When we focus on our grievances (basically anytime, we think things should be other than they are), we animate a world of suffering and struggle.

Many insist on hanging on to the belief that our grievances and struggles are real and I would never attempt to take that away from anyone.

But I can tell you this about my own life. When I put my attention on everything that’s going right (hey, my heart is still beating, the birds are still singing, the sun came up without me having to do a thing), my life, both mentally and physically, is more fun. I’m more curious, more loving, more peaceful. And for me, that’s enough.

So my friends, as I often say on Friday, have the very best weekend of your life. And, yes, I’ve shared this before, but I think it’s high time to share it again. I love you all!

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the recently released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.