You are a Badass (12 page)
Conversely, when you show up disappointed or angry or guilty or oblivious instead of being grateful, you’re at a lower frequency and thereby less connected to Source Energy and in a less powerful state to manifest good feeling things and experiences into your life.
So that’s all fabulous and great, but here’s where the whole gratitude thing gets really cool. There are lots of ways to feel good and raise your frequency and get closer to Source Energy, but with gratitude, you’re actually expending positive energy by sending out thanks, which makes positive energy reflect back to you—every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This makes the manifesting process even more powerful.
It’s like the difference between seeing someone fall apart laughing and seeing them fall apart laughing
at something you said
. The first usually makes you feel as good and laugh as hard as they do, which raises your frequency, but with the second situation, you’re not just meeting them at a high frequency, you’re
exchanging energy
at a high frequency. Their laughter is like their way of thanking you for saying something hilarious, and it gives off an even more powerful zing and stronger connection.
As Wallace Wattles explains in
The Science of Getting Rich:
“You cannot exercise much power without gratitude; for it is gratitude that keeps you connected with Power.”
You are practically powerless without gratitude
—thems is some pretty big words, Wattles! When you actively send this grateful energy out, you receive it back, bringing you closer and closer to Source Energy and raising your frequency higher and higher with each exchange until you come to the visceral understanding that you are the same stuff as Source Energy and that you consciously or unconsciously manifested your reality yourself out of the infinite nothingness and everythingness. Gratitude connects you to the truth that you not only have the power to manifest that which you seek, but you
are
the power. Which means, in essence, when you are being grateful to Source Energy you are being grateful to yourself. Which brings it back to the most powerful thing of all: Self- love. Tah dah!
The more consistently you stay in gratitude and focused on that which is good, the stronger your connection to Source Energy is, and the more quickly and effortlessly you’ll be able to manifest that which is unseen into your reality.
This is the almighty power of gratitude. But wait, there’s more! Gratitude also strengthens your faith.
Faith is having the audacity to believe in the not-yet seen.
Faith is the muscle you use when you decide to blast outside of your comfort zone and transform your life into something that’s practically unrecognizable to you in your present reality. Faith smothers your fear of the unknown. Faith allows you to take risks. Faith is the stuff of “leap and the net will appear.”
Faith is your best buddy when you’re scared shitless.
When you are consistently in a state of gratitude, and aware of all the awesomeness that already exists, it, among many other things, makes it much easier for you to believe that there’s more awesomeness where that came from, and that this yet-to-be-manifested awesomeness is also available to you. You’ve received awesomeness before, so of course, you can receive awesomeness again. This is how gratitude strengthens your faith. And having strong faith is a major key in transforming your life.
Which brings me to the grand gratitude finale—if you want to be a real rock star in the manifestation department, get to the point where you have
both
unwavering faith and unwavering gratitude for that which you desire. This is when the real magic happens because
mixing faith with gratitude is the High Holy Moly of Manifesting.
This takes some Jedi mastery, however, because basically what it entails is not only believing in the not yet manifested (having faith),
but being grateful for it.
In other words, you must be grateful for your imaginary friends and your imaginary life. Yep.
As ridiculous as this sounds, I’m sure you’re already doing it consciously or unconsciously in some capacity in your life. One simple example from my life would be with finding parking spaces. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always gotten stellar parking spots, right out front of wherever I’m going. I don’t care if I’m trying to park in front of the Pope’s house on Easter Sunday, if you don’t want to walk, you’ll be wantin’ to ride with me.
I always approach the hunt for a parking space with the same attitude; a knowing and relaxed certainty that it’s a done deal. The perfect spot is mine, it already exists and I’m genuinely so happy and grateful for it. I really truly
believe
this. Then, as always, someone pulls out and in I go. Yet as consistently as this happens, I’m still always so excited when it does. I never take it for granted, and I am a gratitude machine before, during, and after my guaranteed excellent parking adventure.
Being in gratitude for the not-yet manifested informs The Universe that you know that what you desire already exists, and puts you at the right frequency to receive it.
If you want to radically change your life, strengthen your faith that we live in an abundant, benevolent Universe by being grateful for everything you’ve already manifested and all the good that’s hurtling toward you. Be grateful that you have the power to manifest any reality you desire and then leap into the void to go get it.
Trade in your drama about how you can’t have what you want for
the grateful expectation that miracles will walk into your life, and the more commonplace those miracles will become.
Here are some ways you can practice:
1. THIS IS GOOD BECAUSE . . .
Whenever anything excellent or mediocre or lame or annoying happens to you, meet it with the statement, “This is good because . . . ” and fill in the blank. Once you make this a regular practice, you’ll see how much easier it is to be in gratitude for much more than you realized.
“This is good that I got a flat tire on my way home from picking my kids up. I’ve shown them how to deal in an unexpected situation. Plus I got to spend some quality time hanging out in the car with them playing Twenty Questions while waiting for Triple A to show up. Which is how I found out that my daughter was getting picked on in school.”
It’s important to look for ways to be grateful for
all
that you’ve manifested, even things that you might label under “No, thanks.” If you focus on the negative aspects of the more challenging things in your life, it will just lower your frequency, keep you in pain and resentment, attract more negativity to you, very possibly make you sick, and very definitely make you crabby. If you instead look for ways to be grateful for everything in your life, it not only raises your frequency, but it allows you to grow by opening you up to the lesson.
Yes, sometimes this is a tall order, and there are absolutely situations in life that just full on blow and leaves us standing there wondering what the hell that was all about. Sometimes it takes years (if ever) before we can look back and say, “You know what? I really needed to get my heart broken into a thousand pieces by that jackass. I’m so much happier with the man I ended up marrying.”
Finding the good and the lessons in things allows us to move through them and on to new experiences. If you wanna stay stuck in the same place and keep getting spanked with the same lessons over and over, be negative, resentful, and victimized. If you want to get over your issues and rock your life, be grateful, look for the good and learn.
2. WRITE YOUR THANK-YOU NOTES
Every night before you go to bed, review your day and either write down or mentally note ten things you can be grateful for in your life. These can be everything from the beautiful flowers in your garden to the fact that your heart is beating to the hour-long visit from your persnickety neighbor that taught you to be happy that you don’t have her life.
Stopping and noticing throughout the day all the things that you can be grateful for is a great way to keep your frequency high at all times. So try and remember to do it all day long, but at the very least, make it part of your evening routine.
3. LOVE YOURSELF
Be grateful for all you are and all that you’re becoming.
Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.
—Lily Tomlin; actress, writer, comedienne, absurdist
When is the last time you physically hurt yourself? What did you do to get the pain to stop? And how long did you wait to do something about it? When we’re in physical pain, we’re usually extremely proactive about figuring out how to make it go away immediately because, you know, it hurts. Even if we have to go through more pain from pouring a disinfectant that stings on an open wound or suffering through getting stitches, we do it, right away, because we’re very focused on our ultimate goal: relief.
When it comes to our emotional pain, however, we’re apparently
way more game for seeing just how much torture we can endure, wallowing in our guilt, shame, resentment, and self-loathing, sometimes for entire lifetimes. We prolong our misery by holding on to our ill feelings by badmouthing our mother in-laws, fantasizing about pantsing our loudmouth, incompetent bosses in front of a the whole office, unloading fault on other people, and rolling around in our minds the many reasons why our enemies are wrong and the many reasons why we’re right.
We relive our worst moments over and over and over instead of letting them go, we pick at the emotional scabs and refuse to let the healing happen and the pain subside. We won’t rest until we’ve made sure someone else feels as badly as they’ve just made us feel.
If I have to suffer my entire life I will make sure you see how you’ve wronged me!
We cling to the resentments that take up our brain space, waste our time, spin us out, keep us angry and depressed and very often make us physically sick and sometimes even kill us because . . . um, why?
Lugging around guilt, shame, resentment and self-loathing is The Big Snooze running the show, pitching a fit, demanding to be right and to be seen. Your higher self, on the other hand, could give a crap about what anybody else thinks or does because your higher self is madly in love with you and that’s all that matters. Whatever happened, happened. Holding on will not change this fact, it will just keep the negative feelings from the past alive, keep you a prisoner to your pain and lower your frequency.
The moment you decide to forgive and let your negative feelings melt away, you are on the road to freedom.
Forgiveness is all about taking care of you, not the person you need to forgive. It’s about putting your desire to feel good before your desire to be right. It’s about taking responsibility for your own happiness
instead of pretending it’s in somebody else’s hands. It’s about owning your power by giving all your anger, resentment, and hurt the heave-ho.
Holding on to resentment is like taking poison and waiting for your enemies to die.
If you’re having issues with someone you care about, explain how you feel without putting the blame on them and
regardless of the outcome
, forgive them. Your talk may bring you closer together or you may discover that you don’t want to hang out with them as much or at all, but either way, if you want to be free, you have to let it go.
If you’re feeling hurt or resentful toward some A-hole you don’t care about, free yourself and let it go instead of stewing on it or getting revenge by sending them a box of rats in the mail. Why do you care if they understand how lame they are or not—what good does that do you? And don’t pretend it’s because you want them to become a better person. You could care less. You want retribution or an apology or to be acknowledged as right. Get over it. Let it go. The longer you stay attached to being vindicated, the longer they hang around in your consciousness, stinking up your life. Do not fall prey to the false belief that by forgiving someone you’re letting them off the hook. Because when you forgive someone you let yourself off the hook.
Forgiving isn’t about being nice to them, it’s about being nice to yourself.
Okay, so great, yes, we get it. Now how do you actually let it all go? How do you forgive the stupid bastard?
1. FIND COMPASSION
Finding compassion for yourself or someone else who did something so so so so awful is like pulling a bullet out of your arm: You may kick and scream and hate it at first, but, in the long run, it’s the only way to start the real healing.
One of the best tricks for doing this is to imagine the person you’re resentful of as a little kid. Think of this little person acting out of fear, doing the best they can to protect themselves and attempting to deal with their own suffering in the only way they know how. People act poorly because they are in pain or confused or both. Understanding this, and imagining the person who you want to behead as a sweet little innocent child with big puppy dog eyes, will help you find compassion for them, which is the key to forgiveness. And same goes for anything you feel you need to forgive yourself about. You too are just a little bunny trying to work it all out. Find compassion for your sweet little, sippy cup self and let it all go.
2. ERASE THE OTHER PERSON FROM THE EQUATION
Imagine you’ve got two employees who don’t show up for work on the same day, leaving you to handle everything yourself the morning before a huge presentation. One of them blows you off because she’s hung over and just couldn’t deal, but the other found out that her beloved mother suddenly died and had to run off to the airport, forgetting to call you in her emotional haze.