The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (10 page)

Gratitude, the ability to count your blessings, is the ultimate way to connect with the heart.

 NEALE DONALD WALSCH

I think the heart is gratitude. I think the heart is a feeling. It is the sanctuary for the deepest feelings that can be found within the human experience. And I think among those feelings is the feeling of gratitude. The feeling of being thankful, of being grateful, and of being so in love with life and with everything in life and even, dare I say it, in love with ourselves.

When you are grateful for everything you have, your heart is open. You appreciate the people in your life and they reciprocate. And gratitude creates even more abundance.

 MARCI SHIMOFF

People often ask me, “What’s the fast track to love?” And there is one answer, I think: “Gratitude.” When we’re grateful for what’s going on in our lives, that is when our heart’s open. It’s a way that we actually register and savor the good that’s going on in our lives.

There is an old saying: “What you appreciate, appreciates.” When you appreciate something, then more of that flows into your life.

You can experience gratitude on two different levels: The
first level
of gratitude covers everyday things or interactions. These may range from gratitude for the roof over your head and food for your children to a smile you got from a random passerby on the street. The
second level
of gratitude is to be able to appreciate what you have even after a great loss.

 ECKHART TOLLE

Being grateful is another essential part of living in connectedness with the heart; it comes naturally.

 NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Gratitude is an attitude that changes everything. So I tell people that if you really want to use gratitude powerfully, use it even before, not just after, any particular event.

 JOE DISPENZA

We usually give thanks for things when they’ve already happened. So in a sense, we’ve been hypnotized and conditioned into believing that we need a reason for joy, that we need a reason for gratitude.

Allow yourself to be grateful. Your life will shift into a larger, more positive dimension.

 MARCI SHIMOFF

The brain scans of people who are experiencing a state of unconditional love show that there’s actually greater brain activity, that they’re more intelligent, that you become more creative. When you’re feeling more gratitude or you’re forgiving people, that’s increasing your intelligence.

To increase your awareness of everything that merits gratitude and to make yourself more receptive to the beautiful and loving things in life, keep a gratitude diary. Start each day by writing down a minimum of five things you are grateful for. People who regularly record what they are grateful for are happier than others—and their happiness lasts. Keeping a gratitude diary works even better than therapy or antidepressant drugs.

 HOWARD MARTIN

It’s very, very simple: the more we appreciate, the more we gain. Appreciation is a heart-related feeling. It requires access to the
intelligence of the heart to appreciate or to have gratitude, especially when things don’t go your way. To find something in those times when life is tough, to appreciate something about them or appreciate something about something else, it begins to shift the energies very, very quickly so that you come into another level of buoyancy that rises above the problem. And in doing so, you can then see into it. You can then find ways to deal with it.

With the
second level
of gratitude, you give thanks even in the face of major disappointments, like the breakdown of a love affair, the loss of a job, and even in the face of great sadness or tragedy, like the death of a loved one. This gratitude helps you pave the way for a new life. Even out of the worst thing that ever happened to you—an illness or disability or terrible loss—eventually can come new understanding, new connections, and relationships.

 RUEDIGER SCHACHE

If you express yourself in appreciation or in gratitude, it’s like sending love to God, sending love out in the universe. Gratitude is opening the heart.

 PAULO COELHO