The Focus of Gratitude

Originally posted on April 18, 2021 on medium.com/@shamandao

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

What you focus your attention and energy on will manifest into a life of its own. Shouldn’t it be easy when someone tells you to focus your attention on what you have versus what you don’t have? It’s always easier said than done.

Sometimes our cells are wound up so tight, there’s no room to breathe, let alone have grace and gratitude for the breath we take. The strain and pain felt from the have nots supersede the small amounts of our haves, which ultimately make us yearn for more.

It is in the yearning that we suffer so much more than the pain we are feeling from the inside out.

Gratitude in little bites becomes small habits implemented in our daily lives. They are the small tremors unfelt at the beginning that will eventually rock a powerful eight-point five earthquake in your life. Felt through each cellular level.

We must start first with a small bite. Enough to take in, enough to chew, enough to process through us so we can take another bite.

Amanda was nervous the first time we met on Zoom for our first healing session. Quiet, reserved, and angry. Her anger layered underneath all the sadness she’s suppressed within her soul. She was hesitant. Just enough for me to decline her as a client. There was something about her which Spirit was not showing me yet. But I knew even though she was nervous and afraid, her soul would allow me to do what I do best. Break the parts of her fragmented soul into the pieces she needed me to.

There we were, a healer and a client on opposite ends of the Earth ready to do some soul work. Due to Amanda’s restlessness, I had to do something I’ve never done before.

I had to guide her out of the body to distract her soul with the pretty white and gold lights of the ether realms. So that I could draw out the demonic attachment nested inside of her.

Distraction.

The one time I would recommend distraction. Just enough for her to become distracted. More than enough for me to begin my work. Like a baby getting ready for her first shot, the best doctors will learn the art of distraction to minimize the pain felt from the prick of the needle. A little cry, a little whimper, and all are done.

It’s difficult to have gratitude for what we have when we are in so much emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical pain. It is more difficult when our surroundings compound the negativity that exists from the inside out. If you are already distracting yourself with other vices, why not add something like listing three things you’re grateful for every day?

You won’t get that instant high like you do from distracting yourself with drugs, or the buzz you have when you drink alcohol, but this type of high is worth it. It will come later and rock your entire existence. If you’re reading this and have been waiting for a sign, this is it. Go ahead, give it a try, all the cool and woke kids are doing it.

There’s no need to complicate things. Begin by writing three things you’re grateful for every day. From the air, you breathe to your heart which works so hard to pump the blood through your body. Focus on that and allow your energy to flow there and out. Have toes? What about hands? Eyes you can still see out of? We have seventy-eight organs in our bodies, give or take for some. Fifty body parts and twelve different body systems. That’s already forty-seven days of gratitude listing only our body parts you can and are grateful for.

It’s easy when someone tells you that you should be feeling, thinking, saying, x, y, z; it’s much better when someone gives you clear instructions on why and how you can go about implementing positive habits in your life. It’s very difficult to have clarity when things inside of us are clouded as well as our outside world.

Make room, make space to loosen up your physical, mental, and emotional bodies. Start small. Write it in a journal, on post notes, on the notepad in your phone, make it as easy as possible. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is this. It’s always easier to climb a mountain following someone who has already climbed the same mountain. They’ll make it look easy but it was never easy, nothing ever is.

The first step is always the hardest, so begin. You can always begin again.