“Where your awareness goes your energy flows”. ~Gurudeva
This is one of the first lessons that I learned during my first trip to India several years ago. It is such a simple concept, yet at the same time it can be difficult to apply due to a lifetime of habitual patterns and learned behavior.
Given the challenges that we have faced throughout 2020, perhaps there has never been a more important time for us to understand that where we place our awareness we also direct our energy, and the area where we direct energy is what grows and attracts similar energy ~ like attracts like. Accordingly, if we focus our awareness on fear, fear will easily take hold and grow. This is unfortunately very easy for us to do given our access to news as well as the fear of the unknown and our inability to control what has been going on around us. However, we can, and must, choose to place our awareness on areas of the mind that will uplift us, and in turn, those around us. To this end, there is no better place to start than with gratitude.
As we begin a new year, rather than focusing on what we don’t have…what if we focused on what we do?
What if everyone in our community began their day by simply listing three things that they are grateful for? How would that impact each individual, each family, and the community and world as a whole? What vibration would be sent out to the universe?
Gratitude reminds us of what keeps us whole and also unites us with each other and the world around us. Gratitude reminds of the abundance we have, rather than what we don’t. When we place our awareness on gratitude, our energy flows to a place of abundance, wholeness and unity and that’s what grows.
I hope you will join me in committing yourself to 40 days of Gratitude as we begin the new year (Yogic science confirms that it takes 40 days to fully develop a new life-promoting habit). All you have to do is list three things that you are grateful for each morning when you wake up. Be specific and as you make the list feel the feeling of gratitude for each individual thing flow from your heart. Do this before checking your phone, turning on the tv or having your coffee. You are starting your day with gratitude and it will set the tone of what follows – “Where your awareness goes your energy flows”.
You can simply say the list silently to yourself or even write it down in a journal. This is also a practice you can share with your family or friends. Start or end your day with family by asking everyone to share one thing they are grateful for at a family meal (you may even be grateful that you’re having more family meals together than ever before) and see how gratitude can serve to unite you with those you love and uplift the vibrations of our beautiful seaside community.