Thirty-First Invitation

Healing Heart Communications, Inc.                                  www.devajoy.net   Gathering in Community   Our Circle Expands!   SPRING into GRATITUDE Spring greets us! Let's leap into... the flowers, the blossoms, the green spring grass...  Let's spring into gratitude!  Gratitude is an opening of the heart and an experience of receiving. To be thankful means that we are noticing all that we are, all that is in our lives, all that is beautiful in Nature, and all of the kindness... The actual FEELING of gratitude is so wondrous! It is a visceral opening and pouring of a heart experience. But we can't make ourselves feel gratitude. Matter of fact, we cannot make ourselves feel anything... We cannot contract for feelings, only behaviors including with ourselves. So, even when we are aware that there is so much to be grateful for, we can't make ourselves feel it.  We often think to ourselves, "I should be feeling grateful... " and then the guilt voice adds -- "You have it better than so many others", and "You aren't dying of cancer and you have food and shelter and love in your life”, and "Why aren't you feeling more grateful!?" Sound familiar? Don't our minds do this number on us?  As if we can berate ourselves into feeling grateful...right?!  Have you noticed how that doesn't quite work? Instead, let's invite the experience of gratitude vs. demanding ourselves to feel something we don't.  Let's invoke her. Let's call upon her and ask her to permeate our awareness so that we may truly know that we are in the presence of gratitude.  Let's woo her, and allow ourselves to be wooed -- it is a love affair...and a dance. The experience of gratitude occurs when there is an open heart... Our hearts are not always open... That's part of the dance, the cycle, the openings and closings, the expanding and contracting, the ebb and flow. It is natural. To open and retreat... it is natural. To not always feelgratitude.. it is natural. But this doesn't mean it can't be part of our spiritual practice to know that we are in relationship with gratitude, whether we feel grateful or not! It is within us ~~ as our essence, as our core. Let's invoke gratitude. Every day. It is an inner posture. It is an awareness, not a feeling.  It is a knowingness.  It is not so much about making a list of what you are grateful for (but of course, this doesn't hurt and it is always a good thing to do) but to bring your body into an expression of gratitude and invoke it, no matter what you are feeling.  Raise the vibration of what you are experiencing in your body and then just pay attention and breathe into your body.  (Breath is a great place to start. Breath is breathing into you...THAT is the experience of receiving!) "I invite the experience of gratitude to permeate my life.  So that I am grateful...so that I experience an opening of my heart to receive the goodness and beauty in my life... and to naturally say and feel, "THANK YOU...THANK YOU...THANK YOU!" Just notice how this feels in your body as you make this invitation...this invocation to gratitude.  Join my tribe gathering in the practice of certain morning rituals to align your energy with gratitude.  Make it a habit to greet yourself lovingly when you wake up.  Say "good morning" to yourself upon opening your eyes and hug or touch yourself lovingly in some way (this physical housing of your spirit called your body!) and allow a morning stretch in bed so that you enter into the day gently.  Remember, you are the first one you we waking up to!  So, welcome yourself into the day the way you would want to be greeted. And then, the next ritual that my tribe is participating in is: as soon as your feet touch the ground and you sit up on your bed, before you stand, say "thank you thank you thank you!"  This was inspired by Wayne Dyer's movie in which he did exactly this.  I thought, "That's smart!"  Right now, imagine doing this... Right this moment, imagine greeting yourself with "Good morning, (your name)." Touch yourself with sweetness, stretch this body of yours, sit up and put your feet on the earth and exclaim, "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"  Remember, you don't have to feel it!  Just make it a spiritual practice -- a way of aligning yourself.  Do you have the visual?  Are you willing to experiment with this? To anchor the experience of gratitude in your body, do this exercise with me: Remember a time that you felt so grateful. What was happening? Remember it, see it, feel it. Now, allow the circumstances to fade into the background, as you primarily tune into the sensations in your body that you are calling gratitude. Where do you feel this in your body?  Just notice...Amplify...Breathe...Ahhhhh.... Anchor this by bringing your thumb and index finger together on one hand in order to imprint the experience into your awareness. Now, think about a being that you really love...human or animal... someone who your heart just unconditionally opens with. Feel your gratitude in knowing this being. Tune into the sensations in your body as you invoke the presence of this being. Again, anchor this by bringing your thumb and index finger together on one hand in order to imprint the experience into your awareness. Reflect on the last time you heard news that you were so grateful for -- maybe it is news of someone who is newly pregnant who wanted to get pregnant, or maybe it was news of a threat that was disarmed, or maybe it was about someone you love who was sick and is now well or got good news. Or maybe you got good news. Just notice as you think about this experience where you feel the good feelings in your body...just notice. Again, anchor this by bringing your thumb and index finger together on one hand in order to imprint the experience into your awareness Now, shift your awareness to when you feel safe and cozy and warm and glad to be alive. Your heart is knowing of gratitude.  Notice how you experience this in your body... Again, anchor this by bringing your thumb and index finger together on one hand in order to imprint the experience into your awareness. Every time you feel grateful, bring your thumb and index finger together and anchor it.  You are building upon away of invoking the feeling state in your body.  Then, when you want to feel this gratitude, or at least remember it, bring your thumb and finger together.  Thank you, thank you,  thank you,  for sharing in this practice with me... Lovefully, Devajoy