Generating Gratitude For No Reason
Either you love a challenge, or you don’t.
Either way, this is more of an experiment than a challenge, to see how two simple words can change your day.
“Thank you.”
It doesn’t have to be to anyone in particular. It doesn’t have to be for any particular reason.
Just the words “Thank you.”
Spend ten minutes throughout the day, just saying “Thank you”. It doesn't have to be out loud. It could be five minutes in the morning, even while you are eating. It could be another five at night before you go to sleep. It could be on your lunch break. It could be a dedicated meditation.
Whenever it is for you, just dedicate your mind to saying “Thank you,” repeatedly like a mantra, so that the mind turns from wanting to think about so many (usually troubling) things, to just being trained to say “Thank you” for a while.
At first it might feel uncomfortable. Ridiculous even. Perhaps you don’t feel grateful at all, and yet you are trying to say “Thank you” over and over again. All you have to do is give it a shot, for one week, and see at the end of the week if anything has changed in your mind or in your life.
Don’t look for results until the experiment is over. Results may make themselves clear to you, but you don’t have to hunt for them.
It does not have to be limited to ten minutes. It could be longer, just make sure you don’t shut your eyes if you need to use them, and make sure you don’t become too blissed-out and loosen your grip on the steering wheel if you are driving.
Whether your mind is a mess or a serene lake, repeat “Thank you” like a mantra for a few minutes, and see what happens. The more it is repeated, the more it is felt, and the more it is felt, the deeper it gets, until it raises your entire vibration to a fresh one, and your base becomes gratitude instead of fear or resentment or resistance or anything else we secretly become addicted to.
RESISTANCE WILL ARISE. And to that you just say “Thank you.”
We are always trained to feel good only when our mind or the world gives us a reason to, as if we are so often waiting for permission from something else to ease our stress. Resistance seems valid when life isn’t as you want it. This experiment tests whether this is true.
Let me know how it goes after one week, and whether you want to make it a bigger part of your life.
10 minutes, 2 words, 1 week.
Thank you,
Adam
Inner Peace Now > Inner Peace Blog > Finding Inner Peace > The Gratitude Experiment