When I was in my early twenties, I had just returned from an 18-month full-time gospel preaching mission for my church. I was super into praying to God, thanking for blessings, asking for blessings, asking for guidance, asking for forgiveness, and doing things that would make sure I made it into heaven when I died.
But what about BEFORE I died? I was soooo worried about the hereafter, I completely forgot about the HERE.
I had just given a lovely blessing over the Thanksgiving feast at Grandma's house, when my Buddhist-practicing aunt asked me, "Why do we say thank you anyway? Who are we thanking? And why do we do it?"
I was completely baffled. I actually did not know. If I didn't say thank you, did that mean God wouldn't want to bless me anymore? If I didn't say it, did that make me an ungrateful wretch? And God wouldn't love me anymore? If I didn't say thank you, did that mean all my food would shrivel up and turn to dust? Or poison? If I said thank you, did that mean I needed to say it TO GOD, or to JESUS, or could I just BE GRATEFUL.
And if I was just GRATEFUL, what was the point of being grateful?
These were questions she knew she would elicit in me. She knew I was prone to being overly analytical and philosophical. She knew this would get me. And it did. It haunted me for ages.
I now know why I say thank you. And why I am grateful. Psychologists will say it is good mental practice to be in the habit of practicing gratitude. It helps to release serotonin and other endorphins that improve mental heath. Church leaders will say it helps to keep you humble, and know from whence your blessings come, so you do not grow to be too prideful and sin before God and heaven. Law Of Attraction advocates will say it is so that we attract more things that vibrationally bring us things to be grateful for, if we are in the practice of gratitude.
And I'm not saying they're wrong. They are all probably correct. However, the reason I say thank you is because I AM GOD. I am the creator of my reality. Whatever I believe in, will be my outcome. Whatever I put emotion into is a signal to my subconscious that that thing is true. Therefore, it must exist. When I take my emotion off the things that bother me, and formulate emotion around the things I am happy about, my subconscious is programmed to dissolve the beliefs that create frustrations for me in my life. And it will create new beliefs that allow me to create whatever I want.
I am grateful because I want to tell my subconscious to create more of the things I am grateful for.
The universe isn't bringing me blessings from some unknown place outside of me. I am the universe. I am the blessings. God isn't out there. It's in here. I am God. The vortex isn't some swirling nebula of wishes fulfilled and unfulfilled. It is right here. Right now. I am the vortex. It is within me. The second I believe a thing, it is there. Right when I believe it is. Or right when I believe the thing that needs to be believed in for that thing to exist.
I am not grateful toward anyone or anything. It is not gratitude I experience. It is joy and appreciation and love and deep feeling of contentment. When I get something I want, I experience the emotion that comes with it. That is not gratitude. It is love. Love of the thing I created. And love of myself for creating it. And love of all things for being part of the vortex that is me.
