Exercise 1: Gratitude

Alright, so you have read the explanation on the law of attraction and are wanting to know how to change these automatic and negative ways of thinking and feeling.

If you are truly desiring this change to a more positive mindset with a sense of emotional control to create the life you desire, you can’t avoid writing things down on paper or typing them into a word processor to PRINT out; it’s important to have a physical and tangible piece of material to constantly and quickly be within sight upon awakening and going to bed every day.

Due to our materialistic society’s focus on buying this and that through constant advertising, we focus on what we can get next and if unable to afford it, becomes a focus on what we don’t have or can’t get because of financial limitations. However, that mindset focuses on what we lack in our life, something none of us want; I don’t want lack in my life, do you? I want abundance in my life and you should too but the only way to get more in your life is to be grateful for what you do have already. When we are grateful for what we do have, we don’t focus on what we don’t have, thereby effectively altering the mind and emotions to focus on the abundance already present in our life, which usually gets overlooked if we don’t pay deliberate attention to all those small things we should be grateful for.

Write a gratitude list of as many items you can think of and review it every morning upon awakening and every night before bed; don’t just scan through them and say, “Oh, I’m thankful for this and I’m thankful for that!” Truly feel thankful for what you have as you read each and every item. For example, when I read that I wrote I am thankful for a warm bed, adequate shelter, or clean water, I imagine those children on television that have none of these things, makes me a little sad at first and then this makes me feel truly thankful and it brings a stronger awareness of how much worse things could be. Even if you don’t take the adequate time for whatever reason to feel the gratitude strongly for each item, constant repetition is better than not doing it at all because when simply reading through the list repeatedly, you are bringing awareness to your mind for all the things you have to be grateful for which is just as important as feeling the emotion.

Try to write as many things as you can and when reading through each one, take at least 5 – 10 seconds to feel how your life would be without it; this gives you a way to assess why you should be grateful by thinking and feeling how your life would be different without it. For example, when I read over my statements saying how grateful I am for high speed internet, my laptop, my tablet, and the access to any information I desire at my fingertips, I think about how I would never have been able to do online college and download so many books to add to my knowledge, producing feelings of being unaccomplished and unfulfilled in my life’s purpose of helping as many people as I can; I only hold onto these negative emotions for about 5 – 10 seconds so that I can get a good, solid feeling as to why I should be grateful; some people may need to think on what it would feel like to not have something for a little longer period of time to make the feelings of gratitude stronger.

You may be wondering, “I thought you didn’t want us thinking negatively and were trying to remove these types of feelings?” First, there’s no way to ever completely remove negative feelings or thoughts because they allow us to know what we should be thinking and feeling; also, these negative emotions are being felt in a controlled situation and for a short time just to allow us to feel how grateful we should be. The goal of the law of attraction section of my site is not to cure you of negative feelings and thoughts but to minimize their predominance in your automatic ways of thinking and feeling! Here is the format you can use for your gratitude list:

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I am so happy and grateful for:

1. Having food when I need

2. Having clean water to drink and bathe with

3. Having a nice bed to sleep on

4. Having adequate shelter to keep me comfortable

5. Having the ability to see, hear, smell, taste and feel

6. Having …

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The key to this exercise is deciding where you are going to post it up so that you will see the list when you wake up every morning and before you go to bed every night; if you don’t decide where or how you are going to post it up, you mind as well not even bother writing anything down because constant repetition over several weeks is crucial to this exercise for the appropriate changes to take place. Even if you don’t have the time to take to feel grateful for each and every item, at least read through the list because repetition is the key to the awareness that there is abundance already present in your life.

Do this for 3 to 6 weeks and then come comment to me how you feel this has changed you! Some may notice a change within a week. I’m not talking DRAMATIC life changes here but little things that you notice about the way you’re now thinking and feeling, and the possible effect this may be having on your reality. You will be shocked, amazed, and excited that it truly is this easy to become more positive in your day to day life!

Let’s next turn our focus towards understanding fear and avoidance in attempt to rid yourself of it.

Next Page: Fear and Avoidance