Gratitude plus Anticipation

Gratitude plus Anticipation
by Neale Donald Walsch
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Notes from Neale...

My dear friends...

Thanksgiving has passed, but the time for Gratitude has not. As I mentioned here last week, gratitude is the most powerful force in the universe. It is the single most effective means of using the Power of Personal Creation (what some have called the Law of Attraction). Therefore, move into gratitude at the slightest opportunity - and certainly at the slightest provocation. By slightest "provocation," I mean any person, event, or circumstance that might ordinarily provoke you into some kind of negative reaction. At such moments, I invite you to use a technique that I have developed in my own life, which I have come to call the Reaction Reversal Response (RRR). This is a short process (it takes no longer than a-thought-and-a-second-thought) in which I look at the first reaction that comes up for me, then replace it with the magic of appreciation.

I had not understood much about this particular energy when I was a young man - or even, for that matter, when I reached middle age. Now that I'm officially a "senior" I have come to a...well, a deep appreciation of appreciation.

Let me tell you about this word. One of the key (and most often missed) meanings of the word "appreciate" is "to enlarge, increase, or expand." The word is used in this sense when it is said that, for instance, a property has "appreciated in value." So when you appreciate something, you expand it. You enlarge it. You increase it. This is also true (and this is what is not widely known) when you use "to appreciate" to mean "to show gratitude."

When you show gratitude you appreciate that to which you show it. That is, you make larger, or expand, or increase, that for which you are grateful. Now, when applied to the Reaction Reversal Response process, this truth reveals itself in the following way: We look into a situation that feels negative to us and peer deeply to find the value of that situation. Then we say a word of gratitude about it and we have instantly increased the value that we found there.

I have found that very often the value doubles.

Anyway, try it. The moment anything brings up a negative (or what would typically be a negative) reaction, simply turn that reaction around. Move into gratitude as soon as can. Watch yourself immediately turn calm. Peace will pour into your mind like a magic elixir. Your entire body will lose its tenseness, as if it had been massaged with a soothing balm.

The great thing about this is that you don't have to figure out why you are grateful. The fact is, you may now know why, as a practical matter. It may look as if there is nothing going on right now for which to be grateful -- much less anything you want to increase. Never mind. Be grateful anyway. I promise you that nothing happens in the universe that is not value-driven.

The universe is a finely tuned mechanism, always producing a single effect: value. Life values life, and therefore produces value through the process of Life Itself. The fact that we do not see the value of some things right away does not mean that there isn't any. It merely means that we do not possess sufficient insight to see it. We suffer from a "perspective deficiency." We are not looking at things in the "right way."

Of course, by "right way" I mean from a place that allows us to see all that is happening and all that it means. Often, we see only part of what is happening, and not the whole picture. At other times, we may see all that is happening, but not understand all that it means. It can take time for us to gain such a perspective.

Masters are those who adopt such a perspective long before events "on the ground" prove the perspective to be accurate.

What this opens up to is the True Energy behind gratitude. You may think it is faith, but it more than faith. It is Knowing. I often tell the participants in my workshops: You can hope that something is going to happen, you can have faith that something is going to happen, and you can know that something is going to happen.

"Knowing" is the highest level of awareness. It is the most expansive consciousness. It is the most powerful element of the Process of Personal Creation. It is what changes everything.

I am right now developing an entire approach to life (together with a book that describes it and a one-day workshop that applies it) based on this truth. The book and the workshop are both called: When Everything Changes, Change Everything.

Are things changing in your life right now -- important things? Or do you know of someone who is struggling to cope right now with shifting realities in their personal life?

I don't know about you, but I am observing people everywhere going through great changes - changes in their work life, changes in their financial life, changes in their relationship and romantic life, changes in their family life, changes in their social life, and changes in their spiritual life.

If any of these changes are affecting you right now, and you have sent a call out to the universe for some help, for some answers, for some comfort and clarity, you'll be glad that you read this...

The Pace of Change has increased dramatically all over our planet. I know of very few people who have not been affected by this in some way. Every day I am getting emails and calls from people asking about how to apply the messages of Conversations with God in this situation.

When Everything Changes, Change Everything will be presented for the first time December 7 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in Medford, Oregon. If you're facing major changes in your life right now and would like to join us for this new helping program, simply call Will at 352-442-2244.

It's the first program of its kind that I've ever done in Southern Oregon, and should be easy to reach for anyone living in the western states particularly. Just a short plane ride, or even a nice drive up from California or down from Washington or over from Nevada, etc.

There's no reason to hang out in uncertainty or apprehension or fear about the future. Come and learn how to use change as the greatest thing that has ever happened to you, and how to embrace loss as not loss at all, but gain.

My wonderful Em puts it this way: We've been sent here to love....to love everyone and every experience and every moment and everything we lay our eyes on and every aspect of life that we experience. It's not always easy for us to do that. Unless it is.

We make assessments and judgments and build up thoughts in our mind and create a whole inner reality that may or may not be justified by exterior events. We jump to conclusions and go into convulsions about the littlest things. We fall off the wagon of our own belief in the basic goodness of life. We forget the fundamental laws of the universe - not the least of which is the Presence of Cycles. (See Happier Than God, Chapters 9 and 15). This eternal cycle of process/expression/experience is Divinity Itself. It is God, godding. All things respond to this presence. All things exist in cycles. All things have their being within this system-and there is nothing outside of this system.

My mother used to put this whole thing into wonderful perspective when things were not going well. "Even this," she would say, "shall pass." Yes, Mom, you were right. There's no use getting upset about what's going on right now. What's going on is what's going on, and it will be going on until it isn't anymore. And no amount of worrying is going to change that. No amount of fussing and fretting and fuming is going to affect it one bit. So, in the wisdom of the Beatles...let it be.

Neale

From: Weekly Bulletin #319 * * NOTE: If you would like to send a comment or a question to Neale here at the Weekly Bulletin, you may do so by addressing an email to: weeklybulletinresponse@CwG.org *

Neale Donald Walsch (http://www.cwg.org) Neale Donald Walsch is a modern day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways. With an early interest in religion and a deeply felt connection to spirituality, Neale spent the majority of his life thriving professionally, yet searching for spiritual meaning before beginning his now famous conversation with God. His With God series of books has been translated into 34 languages, touching millions of lives and inspiring important changes in their day-to-day lives. *