Can you imagine being head-over-heels in love with your life?

For the longest time, I could not.

I was frustrated, overwhelmed, fearful and angry that my life hadn’t turned out the way I had imagined. I felt stuck and disappointed and I tried to put on a happy face, but that didn’t help.

Then a friend of mine told me about The Power of Gratitude and it changed my whole world.

Gratitude is not just a nice feeling, it is a FORCE. It is a power. It opens up new creative energy channels, and shakes up old beliefs. It dissolves limiting habits.

I was living in an old apartment, one room with one window. I complained about it constantly. I thought I deserved better. I had dedicated my life to God and I couldn’t figure out why my life pictured poverty. I was stuck and I tried praying and meditating and visualization, but that didn’t change a thing. I kept wishing things would change.

I had very little money. I was deep in debt. I often didn’t even have money to put gas in my car, so I would ask people to give me rides to the places I needed to go. I remember going to the supermarket with change and one or two dollars, trying to figure out what I could buy. Whenever I did get money, the first thing I would buy is cat food. I put the cats first. All the while I kept complaining and whining how “I have no money.”

I should have been putting God first, but I was so deep in fear that I didn’t have my priorities straight.

Finally, a good friend said to me:

“LISA … GET OVER YOURSELF.”

HA! That got my attention! Often, I think the best thing that can happen in life is a good swift kick in the pants!

She told me I was ungrateful and a complainer, and that she was tired of listening to me.

That was the greatest gift anyone has ever given to me.

She said the universe could not give me anything new until I was in complete over-the-top appreciation and gratitude for the place I was currently in.

She said I needed to start to see my room as a palace, and feel real gratitude for it and to stop wishing my life was different.

She said I needed to fall in love with my life, as it was, right in that moment.

She said that I needed to find things to be grateful for – not a superficial gratitude – but REAL enthusiasm and excitement and joy for all that was in my life.

She said I needed to see with new eyes.

I “knew” all this on an intellectual level, but until that moment I never really “got” it.

In that moment, I got it.

I went and bought as much cleaning supplies as I could with all the money I had (about $15), and I whipped my home into shape. It was no longer a room I hated. It was my home that I loved. It was my sanctuary. I cleaned like never before and I fell in love with my life that day. I started to count my blessings and I noticed how much I had overlooked how RICH I truly was. I HAD EVERYTHING!! I had the most amazing people in my life. I had A Course in Miracles which had healed me of addiction and alcoholism. I had my books, my family, the grass, the air, my cats, my health. I had Jesus. I kept finding more things to be grateful for. I was grateful to my friend Max who bought me coffee every day at Starbucks and made me laugh.

I fell so completely in love with my room that I felt I could have lived there forever. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I loved my life. I felt so much gratitude that I thought my heart would burst. I had my big sunny window, my big beautiful bed, a great computer, internet, and I was inspired daily. I had great friends and I had God, and incredible teachers.

This is what the bible means when it says: I was blind, but now I see.

I felt new possibilities for my life. I was not a victim anymore and I felt connected in a way I’d never felt before (this was 2008). I started waking up in the morning with a feeling of excitement, and I would bounce out of bed, ready for all the surprises the day would bring.

I felt like I had “arrived.” I felt like “I have it all.”

Within weeks of EVERY-DAY-GRATITUDE, the picture of my life changed. Out of the blue, I got invited to be the innkeeper for a beautiful new house on 10 acres on a lake, with a salary – a job I have always wanted but didn’t think was possible for me because I felt I would never have enough money to buy a house. And it was just given to me.

So I wanted to share this story with you. GRATITUDE IS A FORCE.

It has to be real in order to shift your life.

I often hear people say “I’m grateful” and I know it’s just words, there’s no energy in it – that’s not the gratitude that I am talking about.

Silent Gratitude is not much use to anyone, including yourself.

You really want to FEEL IT and SHARE IT and TELL OTHERS ABOUT IT.

I am talking about gratitude that fills you with excitement and possibility and enthusiasm – and you feel like you want to tell everyone you meet that you love them.

You will know the difference when you experience it.

True Gratitude bubbles over. That’s when the mountains of old grievances that have buried inside you start to shake up and dissolve.

The FEELING of gratitude is the most powerful spiritual energy you can tap into, and it will change your life, practically overnight.

If you feel stuck and want to be unstuck, gratitude is the answer.

Don’t wait for things to change.

Get the energy moving by falling in love with your life, exactly the way it is now. Find things to be grateful for. Find things to be excited about. Feel like a child again, with your eyes open to the splendor of all that is around you.

Today is the day to fall in love with your life.

Love,

Lisa

If you have a story of how gratitude transformed your life, we would love to hear it. Please post it in the comments below. Thank you for sharing and commenting.