Gratitude as a Spiritual Path

I am in a mode of expanding my experience with gratitude. I have heard that gratitude is a powerful spiritual tool that can land a person in a sweet, sweet spot. That is what I need right now...a sweet spot.

I know what it means to be grateful. I have experienced gratitude and it is pretty darn delicious.

However recently I began to ponder it as a spiritual path. I was in a small group discussion with a wise woman and she began to talk about bows of gratitude.

Now let me set this up. Before I began to hear her speak I was in the process of doing bows of gratitude. This is when you literally do one bow after the other offering gratitude with each bow.

I knew full well that I needed to take this process deeper and right at that moment the wise woman began to speak:

"Slow down your bows. FEEEEEEEELLLLLLLL the gratitude with each movement in the bow....Can you do 100 bows of gratitude? What about 1000 bows of gratitude? Are you willing to be grateful until your knees bleed? Can you imagine being so grateful that you do 10,000 bows of gratitude?"

Sheesh! She then went on to tell a story that there are some people in the world who actually commit their life to doing bows of gratitude on behalf of all humanity.

All I could think was that I am so grateful for those souls because I know that I have been ungrateful a time or two.

But this got me to thinking about my gratitude level. Is gratitude a part of my lifestyle? How grateful am I really?

I have taken the last few days to go out of my way to be thankful for all that I can think of in that moment. It is amazing how much I take for granted.

Just writing this I am overcome with a deeply warm fuzzy feeling of gratitude for all of life, my life.

You know...This wise woman asked the following questions: "Can you be grateful for the things in your life that maybe didn't feel so good such as parents who didn't love you but still brought you into the world?

"Can you be grateful for that mate who walked out on you leaving you with a broken heart?

"Can you be grateful all the messes you created in your life that caused you to spiral down into situations that were just plain old bad?

"Can you be grateful for it all? How deep is your gratitude?"

I nearly passed out as I listened to her. When we CHOOSE to be grateful, then it is so. This year the primary energy speaking to the Goddess-Body-Mind-Spirit.com community is Maat.

Maat asks that we SEE THE BIG PICTURE. Gratitude is a way to help us step outward and see more of the big picture.

Ultimately ALL IS ONE. There is only the One Divine Source, The Great Mother/God which is Universal Consciousness. I am suspecting that gratitude is a way to arrive at seeing this Ultimate Truth, this Divine Oneness inherent in all things.

And if nothing else, gratitude is the fuel that keeps us living and allows us to seek more even if we are still figuring out most of reality.

I invite you all to journey with me down this gratitude path to see what we find.

In deep gratitude,
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com