Since beginning this blog and the morning ritual of expressing my gratitude each day, my life has changed.  And it has changed remarkably for the better.  I am stunned by the effect on my life of an activity that appears so simple and one I thought I was already fairly consistent with.  What an eye opener this new journey is.

One of my very first thoughts in the morning, usually climbing out of bed, is “what am I most grateful for today” or “what am I going to write about today”.  This thinking is not compulsive nor does it feel like an obligatory task.  Rather, I look forward to it the way birds must anticipate embracing sunshine or the earth looks forward to rain.  I grow a little each day and become healthier from this simple expression of gratitude each day.

Near the start my thinking was it would be difficult to come up with a gratitude subject to write about each day.  How wrong I was!  It seems the more thanks I express, the more I find to be thankful for.  Here on my desk is a list of over 20 items to write about in the future and my store of future subjects is getting larger by the day now.

I have been moved emotionally at my very core by this daily activity.  Like most, I have read sayings about being grateful and believed in their wisdom.  Long has the belief been within that gratitude was a key ingredient in a good life.  What I have discovered is the sizeable distance between intellectually knowing truth and emotionally knowing truth.  Through this experience my discovery is my intellect is largely really one dimensional.  My feelings add the additional dimensions of height and depth to my understanding.  And so it has become with gratitude.

Each morning it takes about 30 minutes or so to create what is found here each day.  The belief within now is each half hour affects me like I imagine a solid half hour of prayer might.  For me a prayer has never lasted more than seconds and if ever, certainly no more than a minute or two.  To essentially pray for a half hour has a profound effect.

Further, after when finishing each day within is a feeling as if completing a half hour of formal meditation in the manner I have practiced somewhat regularly for years.  In that practice I close my eyes and count my breaths up to ten.  Inhale is “one”; exhale is “two” and so on until I reach ten.  Then I start over again.  Just that little bit of activity is enough to keep my mind from bouncing around in thought the way a pinball moves around in a game machine. My conclusion is writing this blog causes me to center on one subject I am grateful for and the sharpness of that focus quiets my mind much like formal meditation.  I did not expect this and am frankly profoundly moved by it all.

I am grateful that you have come here to read what I have written.  Now with gladness I share of myself openly about my truths, feelings and thoughts.  However, the impetus behind me doing so began as a purely personal thing and has evolved into a personal need now that when exercised is as nourishing to me as food and drink.  I know now that the measure of gratitude in my life is directly related to the amount of happiness and contentment I can experience.  I GET IT! 

So this morning I am humbly grateful to the spark of an idea, the thought put in my head by the universe and the divine inspiration that I feel that caused me to begin Good Morning Gratitude a few weeks ago.  I am convinced my gratitude multiplies the good in my life and diminishes the difficulty to an extent that exceeds my ability to express it.  I could lament “why did it take so long” but choose instead to say “the best of my life is still ahead”.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.
  Carl Jung