Last year I was reading through an old journal, and the gratitude entries felt … well … a little icky.
As I read through them, I felt like there was an element of authenticity that was missing. I found myself wondering, who wrote that and was she really grateful for that?
The energy felt a little forced.
The majority of my moments of gratitude involved overcoming a struggle or having an insight around a struggle I was experiencing.
At first, I had trouble putting my finger on it, but then I realized that the most genuine sounding entries had more of an energy of appreciation than of gratitude. (Sounds like I’m splitting spiritual hairs, I know… hang on.)
With that insight, I chose appreciation as my word for the month, and I began to focus on the energy of appreciation.
As I worked with it, appreciation felt very similar energetically to the feeling of love.
So, I rocked out with some appreciation awareness and love mantras.
I was pretty floored by the immediate responses. Two friends I hadn’t heard from for a while reached out with the sweetest messages. Two other friends sent flowers to me on a random Monday for no reason. The Universe gave me a love fest within 24 hours of making this shift.
I got curious and did a little digging, because ya know, the mind just can’t accept all this magnetism without an explanation LOL.
I stumbled across an Abraham Hick’s video (below), which completely helped me process what I was feeling around the whole gratitude/appreciation thing. (I basically felt like it was recorded for me.)
A few of the key takeaways …
* Love and appreciation are identical vibrations
* A state of appreciation is being who you really are
* Gratitude has a different vibrational essence. When you feel gratitude, you’re looking at a struggle you’ve overcome, and feeling grateful you’re no longer in that struggle (but you’re still messing with that vibration of struggle through the gratitude of not being in it)
To be fully accountable, over the years I have talked about the importance of having a gratitude practice, as I learned from my positive psychology studies. And it did serve me at points in time.
But for ME, for NOW, focusing on gratitude doesn’t feel aligned.
And I know from experience that forcing never works long term and leaves us feeling depleted with one more thing on the to-do list.
We create struggle when we make choices that are not aligned with our truth.
My truth, right now, is the energy of appreciation. So, I’m sticking with it. (And loving it.) Because it’s what feels right, right now.
Rock on with your gratitude practice if it’s serving you.
Consider this an invitation to up level your gratitude to appreciation if what you read here resonates with you. (And PS share any responses you get from the Universe. I love hearing about those little miracles!)
Thank you, for being here and reading this – I appreciate YOU! ☺
PS: reading through old journals is an amazing way to become aware of our “stuff.” The majority of our thoughts are repetitive, which becomes abundantly clear when you’re reading through old journals. Seeing the same old sh*t written in black and white, over and over again, can serve as motivation to finally make changes.
