Gratitude is born of humanity and humility. Historically, it has been a soul quality that people deliberately developed, which as a result, sustained our personal life and society as a whole.
Fundamentally it is the beauty of giving and receiving, sharing and exchanging resources that has kept our species alive for many thousands of years.
Nowadays though, we live in a society that subliminally emphasises entitlement rather than expressing gratitude. In this go-getting world, gratitude somehow has a negative connotation.
From ego’s place, thankfulness and appreciation comes across as “weak” or “uncool”, but the truth is that gratitude ignites your strength and healthy esteem, this is a path to enlightenment.
Anyone who has stargazed or read astronomy inspired Sci-Fi knows the wonderful feeling of many self-inflicted problems disappearing into the night sky or lines in the books that transmit the vastness of our Universe.
WHEN HUMBLE MEETS PLENTIFUL
In metaphysics, gratitude goes hand in hand with abundance. When we experience true abundance, we cannot help but become more grateful towards life; and vice versa.
In a time like now, it is not always easy to be at one with gratitude or abundance.
If you struggle to feel grateful or writing a gratitude list makes you feel pressured, forced or even inauthentic, slow down a little so that you’ll have the bandwidth to pay attention to some moments when you are truly satisfied, no matter how tiny they are.
Notice how those moments crack your heart open even if just briefly, and how you are filled with enchantment and vitality again.
Isn’t it amazing when those tiny moments burst forth, stretching time and space into endless vastness, creating joyous hospitality, allowing you to receive the life force once diminished.
Notice them with all your senses and give them thanks.
Accept them as if they were physical gifts to you. Shift begins here.
In our increasingly shout-to-brag culture, gratitude helps us turn down the noise, it whispers to us with quiet confidence, “wherever you are, offers you a unique set of resources.”
Listen to that voice, as you’ll gain more willingness to make the most of those resources.
For example, many creative people, when starting a new business, or moving their project in a different direction, are under huge pressure.
When you see that everyone else already has a large following, who are interested in their offerings but you don’t, you may have doubt, fear, or even feel inadequate at times, which is all perfectly normal.
However, just because you are new, it doesn’t mean that you are invalid. If you are able to embrace where you are, you’ll see that being new also means it is more natural for you to grow and learn, that you haven’t lost your curiosity, that you can bring so much freshness to your customers, that perhaps, by keen observation and research, you can avoid the commonly made mistakes in your industry.
Please don’t take any of these qualities for granted: they are the antidote to toxic comparison. Your freshness and enthusiasm might be the exact ingredients to help someone getting out of a stale pattern. Something they have long been searching for but struggled to find until now.
Remember to light yourself up.
In short, gratitude helps us lean back to our own energy, from here, true abundance multiplies.
LEARN FROM THE SEASON
As I’m writing to you now, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Chrysanthemum Moon is waxing and Autumn in full swing.
My neighbours have grown a large sunflower, which has given me so much joy in this challenging time. In Summer, she looked like a giant smiling face from the distance. As the season is moving, her petals and leaves are now fading, head tilting, barely holding herself anymore. To me, she is just as beautiful as she was in her prime. I walked up to her, thanking her for all those small yet significant pleasures she has brought me.
This is a season when leaves are falling according to their own schedule. Yet they are enriching the soil, providing shelter and nesting materials for wildlife, enabling the next generation to flourish.
With chlorophyll breaking down, the universal green is fading away, Nature is busy revealing her deeper layer of beauty with a colour splash.
Beyond releasing and letting go, this season invites us to mine the diamonds within.
What is calling you at the moment?
Which innate gift you want to cultivate, despite social conditioning?
How will you give yourself more permission, permission to be heard, seen and loved?
Here are some reflective journal prompts to help you re-discover and re-align with who you are.
May you rest well in your truth, may your insights flow with richness.
With love,
Yiye Zhang 章一叶
