Gratitude and Appreciation

In almost all of the law of attraction teachings, it is said that in order to create and manifest the life you want it is key is to feel gratitude and appreciation; in fact, several techniques and processes are given in order to achieve this. If it is easy for you to feel those emotions or to maintain them, you are already in possession of an important element in applying the law of attraction in your favor! But if you - like me - at times, and especially when you feel very bad, find it difficult to feel gratitude and appreciation, do not worry... you are not alone; you are not the only person experiencing this difficulty. I used to have this problem, and I have witnessed a lot of people who had it as well.

For example, I remember that when growing up, the adults in my life used to make me feel very bad when I was trying to cope with a difficult feeling and they would say "Aw! What you should do is be thankful for all that you have! You are an ungrateful brat! You do not appreciate all that you have or all that others do for you! You are bitter (or a crybaby)! God is going to punish you because you are ungrateful!" These comments would make me feel worse than I already felt... maybe they were able to quiet me down, to stop me from speaking out, from bothering them, or to make me become silent because they did not know what to do with my feelings or with theirs, or maybe when they said these things they truly wanted me to feel better, I do not know, but I do know that when I heard these comments, I felt bad because on top of my existing emotional discomfort, I would feel guilty, bad, wrong, ashamed, inadequate, incapable, etc...

Later on, as a grown up, I have kept hearing these words all around me; from people very close to me like from my mother and my husband, whom - by the way - I believe are the kind of people that find it easy to feel gratitude and appreciation. I also observed how when they said things like that to my daughter it did nothing positive for her; in the contrary: she feels worse - just as I did as a child - which confirms to me that it is not a loving action for her. Around that time, I, on intuition, would approach her and what I would do is listen to her, without judgment, trying to accept and understand what she was feeling.

This concept of gratitude and appreciation also appears in several philosophies and teachings; however, as we all know, for several years now, where the importance of gratitude and appreciation is most heard, is in anything that has to do with the law of attraction, and this was precisely one of the things that I had the most difficulty with when trying to make the law of attraction work for me, without first applying the law of love. When I used to try to force myself to feel gratitude and failed at it, or when I felt it but without being able to make it last, I felt frustrated, desperate, and disappointed. Before I knew it, I was feeling anxious, guilty, ashamed, mad, or depressed, and despaired and without hope. Until one day - after having started to use Inner Bonding - listening to someone talking about the law of attraction, I had a insight - or rather - my heart was open and I heard my guides telling me that what they should teach us as well is that it is very hard to feel gratitude when we have our energy inside our bodies blocked by all the feelings that we have not fully accepted yet, listened to or tended to, and that if we are unable to feel gratitude for the things that we are experiencing in that moment of our lives, who cares!, that maybe we can begin to feel gratitude and appreciation for the feelings that we are feeling in a given moment, that the first thing we may do is accept and embrace without judgment whatever it is that we are feeling, knowing that we have good reasons to feel that way, knowing that we have good reasons for not being able to feel gratitude and appreciation in that exact moment of our lives, since once we know and understand this, we immediately open the door to allow us to feel compassion for ourselves.

I also realized, especially through the practice of Inner Bonding, that perhaps I could begin by feeling gratitude for having the process available to me, and for my feelings, whatever they may be... and not just for the nice ones, but to truly begin to feel gratitude for my pain and for all the feelings that I do not like having since all feelings are full of information and their purpose is to inform me how I am loving myself or how I am not loving myself, and by listening to them and tending to them, I immediately connect with a higher source of wisdom in order to receive the truth and the necessary wisdom to know which are the loving actions to take on my behalf, and in this manner, to love myself in a practical and concrete way, thus being able to make the law of love work for me.

Sometimes I could not even feel gratitude for my feelings, but thanks to the law of love I knew that in that moment, that was not important, that in that moment, the most important thing was not to judge myself and to accept myself with all the feelings that I was feeling at that moment; that in that moment, that was what loving myself was all about, and that was what immediately raised my frequency, which is what is needed in order to make the law of attraction work for me.

The law of love says that feelings are not felt by force, and that they do not hinge on willpower, and that it is also not loving to force a feeling in order to control the outcome of things, and much less to force a feeling in order to cover, ignore, or avoid other feelings.

So if you are unable to feel gratitude at a given moment in time, you may want to begin to explore why you want to feel gratitude, and what are your good reasons for being unable to feel gratitude, or what feelings you have to tend to and listen to first before you may feel gratitude.

If what you want is to have the law of attraction work for you but you are unable to feel gratitude, do not worry. Maybe what is missing is to make the law of love work for you first.

I truly wish to encourage you to continue to practice Inner Bonding, regardless of whether or not you are able to feel gratitude, because you will be applying the law of love, making it work for you, and I am completely certain that this will enable you to maintain more frequently a state of gratitude and appreciation, in a softer and more natural way.