At our workshops across the world, we begin each meditation by opening our hearts. When we do this, I always monitor our student’s energy and observe what they are doing. Surprisingly, I often find that it’s very difficult for most people to open their heart and really feel an elevated emotion such as gratitude. It usually takes them a few days to finally be able to fully surrender into the feeling. I was especially mystified by this at our last event on the Sunshine Coast in Australia a few weeks back. It caused me to wonder, why is it so hard for the majority of us to really feel gratitude?
After giving it some thought, it dawned on me that most people don’t actually feel authentic gratitude in their daily life. When people say thank you, they are doing so by operating out of an unconscious program. While they may be saying thank you, they lack the awareness and allowance to actually feel gratitude for a long enough period of time for it to have an effect. Why is this important? Because it’s the emotion of gratitude that is carrying the thought, and we now know that the feeling of gratitude actually has dramatic effects on the body, including strengthening the immune system and upregulating genes.
When you see someone who authentically feels gratitude, whether they’re feeling grateful for the morning mist, a hot shower, the sun setting over the ocean, or receiving a gift, you can witness them having an energetic experience. Something shifts within them—some veneer, facade, or image they project to the world about themselves drops and in that space an authentic vulnerability appears. You can always tell people who truly feel gratitude, so pay attention to these people. When they feel that emotion and really experience it, it’s a completely different experience than the program of just saying thank you. Instead of going on autopilot, a person experiencing gratitude will pause in the present moment and really feel the expansiveness of the emotion and follow it with a kind word or thought. A person who lives In gratitude for the simple things in life has made it a habit.
I find it ironic that so many people spend their days living in a program, constantly focusing on what they don’t have. Instead they should be focusing on feeling gratitude for all the things they are creating, all the things in their life that are working and are actually worth feeling grateful for. When we are living in a program of survival, it’s very hard to feel grateful, and this takes away our awareness to see what is right in front of us. A person may have ten great things happening in their life, but instead they focus on that one thing that’s not working, because that’s what we do in survival—we prepare for worst-case scenarios so that they don’t happen again.
With Thanksgiving having just passed and the holidays on their way, it’s a great time to start focusing our gratitude on all the wonderful things we do have in our life, rather than the things we don’t. So many of us have been hypnotized into waiting for something outside of us to make us feel better, whether that’s a drug, a person, a job, a shopping spree, a video game, alcohol, cigarettes, and so on. This causes us to become conditioned and dependent on our outer world to change how we feel in our inner world.
So why would we feel gratitude if we haven’t received anything? Remember where we’re going with this work—to feel elevated states with our eyes open. By feeling and practicing gratitude in your waking day, you’re in a state to receive—you are in an energy that is drawing something to you on a moment-to-moment basis. The people who do find the time to authentically feel gratitude and drop that facade or veneer are the people who actually have the ability to feel gratitude in their meditations in a more natural way. The goal of this work is to create a bridge between our meditations and our waking life. This is why we are doing the work in the first place—to have these elevated feelings in our waking, working daily lives. If you are doing this properly then in a sense you are stepping out of the present consciousness of your current life and creating an unknown experience somewhere in the future.
So think about the feeling of gratitude you would experience if some problem in your life was resolved, whether it’s a health condition, relationship problem, a job dynamic, or whatever it is that keeps you at the same level of consciousness you are currently in. Write down the feelings of relief you would feel and the state of being you would experience when that relief happens.
Finally, remember that the only way you can make your way out of the box of your current reality is to go into another box. This is the next evolution of your greatest understanding of where you want to be, and it all starts with gratitude. Why? Because gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership.
Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Thanks-receiving!
Why are you so perfect? <3
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 He is so remarkable. So much wisdom
Beautiful… No coincidence that I am currently writing my last chapter in my book on gratitude. Thank you Joe, it’s been a little while since we have broken bread and shared a laugh, I am going to see you next year in one of your workshops… the time has come my friend!
Thank you! I love❤️
Thank you.. Thank you very much.
I understand what you say:) It’s ”freeing” to know the power is free and always there: now we just have to learn the drivning, so to say…:)
Once you witness and feel true gratitude you don’t want to go back to the remote programed type. After reading this I now will add more words to the Thank You to engage the recipient so they stop for a few seconds and absorb the gesture..
Love learning and a chance to expand “the work”
Thank You again and again Dr Joe. You help me to soar and pay it forward!!
I truly believe in what you have said and try and practice it every day of my life. Your teachings have had a profound influence on my life and I am coming to one of your advanced workshops as a result. Thank you!!!!
It has only been a year since I have been studying your work and like you, I have come to realise most of us do not know what it is like to feel ‘Joy’ to feel ‘accepted’, ‘respected’ and even ‘love’. In Britain we have a culture to hide our emotions and therefore we do not openly know how they feel and with this work of emotions, we need to practise what these emotions feel like other than ‘happy’. There is always a higher state and a higher state of happy and it’s knowing what those higher states are. It can be exhausting but well worth it because it puts one on an adventure to seek out how the feelings of ‘joy’. ‘bliss’ and ‘pleasure’ really are when they come from a place of ‘unconditional love’ and ‘acceptance’ of what is.
Loving the adventure of learning from you.
Naila
Dr. Joe, thank you for everything. Your blogs, your books, your videos and messages on twitter; -all of them have helped me immensely and its become a habit of mine to listen to your videos almost on a daily basis. Feel so much gratitude that you made your presence in my life to help me cross the ”river of change”. Its a beautiful life and God bless you with health and a long life so that you can carry this message to many more.
Merci pour ce rappel de ressentir
Thank you! What a beautiful way to start the holiday season and move forward into 2019.
I choose to live in a state of gratitude!❤️
I am reading your book How to become a Supernatural as it was closely represented what I have experienced. Around the year 2013 I started having these dreams that were not dreams because I didn’t know I was dreaming until I opened my eyes. It was every night between 1 am and 4 am. Unfortunately my dreams were not full of love well at first they were then they turned to terror. So I read articles how to close a door to outside interference and for years i went to bed fortifying that door. The dreams came less frequent sometimes months would go by. But in my dreams I am fully coherent it feels so real. I plan to read all your books. Maybe i can change the negative dreams to something else a new me. 🙂
This article answers questions that I didn’t know I had ! THANK YOU DR JOE
I often think about ‘thank you’ and wonder if it’s used habitually without feeling.
You know, Sone people are just almost sarcastic using it so much
Beautifully said. I would just maybe add “and forgiveness “.
🙏
I feel real gratitute by reading this wonderful uplifting article
LOVE THIS article. What a great reminder,
QUESTION….. What’s the difference between meditation with gratitude, versus a person who is sitting around contemplating or dwelling on a past or future based event in their mind that’s attached to fear or anger? Isn’t dwelling on something mentally just a form of meditation? And in this case wouldn’t it just be a mini meditation that is saturated with fear and anger? The person who is dwelling on the past event or perceived future event would in fact temporarily suspend awareness of their surroundings while they contemplated the emotional event in their mind.
I’d like to be able to explain meditation to a family member who doesn’t see the value in it. If I can show him that he is already doing it with fear and anger, then perhaps he can understand the concept. Thanks!
Forget trying to explain anything to someone who is not interested. It never works
Bloody Brilliant, Thank you Joe!
Thank you deeply Dr Joe for this uplifting reminding, brightening my day with high vibration🌟 It’s spreads blessings to all beings💛 Corinne
I always wonder that the phrase “if you are doing it properly” means. What is doing the work properly. IS it the way you meditate, how much you meditate, the time spent meditationing? If there a right and wrong way of doing this? It gets in the way. Can you please clarify this for me?
Thank you for your time writing the above post.
I love this!
I needed to read this today, as I had slipped, mightily and unexpectedly, back into the program after experiencing a surprising miracle.
And there this was in my inbox!
I am so grateful for that miracle!
I am grateful for my life!
I am grateful for all the miracles!
I am grateful for this work.
I am grateful for you, Dr. Joe!
I am able to feel gratitude from the deepest plsce in my heart because the experiences i have had in my life had thought me the beauty of silence and simplicity. and the healing power that comes from living close to nature.Because that and the connection i have developed with my beloved Source through meditation and prayer is that i have been receiving those downloads that you talk so much about it, ” like having and orgasm in ypu head” or ” having so much energy coming in
that looks like a seizure”
They r changin my sytem to update it but also it takes time to get acostume to the new.
So dont get discourage JD. Some of us are actually listening and truly practicing to take the next step ahead in our evolution.
Thank you🙏🌼💜
In the summer of 1999, I received this vision:
“There was an awareness that the purpose of every life experience–every thought, every relationship, every circumstance, every moment on this earth–is for realizing our oneness with God. I saw two doors floating freely above a scene whose beauty could only be described as heaven on earth. On one door were written the words ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ and on the other door was written the word ‘Gratitude.’ There was a knowing that I can consciously choose the door of Gratitude to become aware of Oneness or life will choose the other door for me to create that same awareness. Through either door, consciously or unconsciously, life will lead me to Oneness and ultimately to creating heaven on earth.”
Thank you, Dr. Joe, for accentuating the importance of Gratitude. I would like to form a global online community of people who share a commitment of living in heart-centered Gratitude. It’s all about surrendering into and living in and from the feeling of Gratitude. And if a person believes what this “Two Doors Vision” revealed as Truth, then they will know by the transformation that takes place in their own life that they have become a creator of heaven on earth. God bless you!
This is an extremely important article to read and reminds me where I’m headed with my practices. I’m well aware that although I do have difficulty feeling grateful, that it will come with time, consistent practice, patience, sincerity, and surrendering myself to that feeling. Thank you for this article =) I will count it as one of my blessings
Love it : )
Thank you for the reminder. I’m going to write down what it would feel like to have my life the way I truly desire it to be. And I will focus on this each day.
Dr. Joe you are part of my day, every day, Your books and videos, and your online course are changing my life, and I am so thankful for you!
Awesome article…lots to think about! I will Start by saying I am very grateful that I found Dr. Joe Dispenza’s thoughts, theories & meditations! You have been a life saver. From the bottom of my heart I can feel the gratitude 🙂
Thank you for this message. I need it
Magnífica lectura para mí, siempre soy agradecida, más no se cuánto dura ese sentimiento de gratitud en mi ser, para sentir su efecto en mi cuerpo.. Gracias por ayudarme a pensar en un paso más adelante..
Thank you for your work! It’s so life changing!
The best Thanksgiving present! Thank you!
Thank you! A real nice thought for every day.We have so many things to be grateful for.
Thank you — no, i REALLY mean Thank You — for helping us change our world!
This is absolutely beautiful ….it is enlightening and transforming. Thank you, Dr. Joe…
Thanks a lot Dr Joe , yes take a moment to feel deeply inside, to watch people in the eyes , it makes a big difference .
What a powerful message. Thank you! 😃
It is sooo true that saying ‘Thank you’ has become a program and it is hard to get into the feeling. This article really brought it home for me! It’s empowering to understand why we struggle with something and then to have a plan to move forward. Thank you thank you thank you Dr Joe! This has really shifted something for me! 🙏
Yes so grateful for my Life and all I have received so unexpectedly, so grateful for my teachers of all sizes and shapes, grateful to know what it feels like to Know the Divine
I always express gratitude after my morning meditation and have noticed the stronger more sincere than feeling, the more synchronicity is happening.
Being grateful for the day ahead or the week ahead, or some event that’s coming up always produces an affect. One of the keys I learned was being aware and watch for for the unexpected, and the miracles do happen.
Thank you for this post, Dr. Joe. This year has been a spiritual journey for me and the #1 thing I’ve found to help raise my vibration is the power of gratitude. Authentic gratitude, as you put it, for all the experiences I’ve had. Understanding that everything that happens should be seen as a lesson learned. I’m trying to see things not necessarily as good or bad, but something to expand the experience.
Excellent as always. Thank you. Devastated I missed the Gold Coast visit. Maybe next time. Come to Adelaide please. Just before I read this and was preparing for a Dispenza meditation I was pondering the joyful approach to life of a good friend through all kinds of difficult situations and how I need to emulate that joy and then your article turns up. All things work together…… Dispenza dispenses medicine for the heart yet again. it can’t be a coincidence your name is how you live your life. Many blessings to you all.
Cheers
Thank you for sharing this information in the easy to understand way that you do 🙏🏻
[…] This article by Dr. Joe Dispenza […]
Dear Joe,
Absolutely love the way you approach the subject. So very, very clear!!!
In this day and age such an approach is so very helpful and effective, so… thank you, thank you, thank you!
Today through this article I was reminded of the survival program that is working within me. I truly realize the importance of having gratitude for the things I have around me.
In the comprehension of my feelings, gratitude would be equivalent to love.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for all the work you do. It was a privilege to attend my first live event.
I love u Dr. Joe. Thank you so so much from all.my being!!
Such a perfect piece and reminder, exactly what I needed in this moment. Thank you, with so much gratitude 🌻
I think there are many people who have never even considered being grateful for anything, or who are seeing today’s article as “groundbreaking” in their life. I’m grateful that I’m not one of them.
Thanks for your thoughts on gratitude. Thanks for the teaching of how gratitude affects our life.
I attended one of your workshops in Chicago and greatly benefited. Not long ago, I felt compelled to write about gratitude on my
blog site ….challengeoftransformation.wordpress.com….
I agree with the person who wrote…what does “doing it properly “actually mean?? Is there a proper way to meditate and an idea improper way??
For 90 days, I was working on Intensive & Progressive workshops online (enjoyed every minute of it), and EVERY SINGLE day I felt such deep-deep gratitude to you, Dr. Joe! God sent you to us… Getting familiar with your teachings & meditations is a very important milestone in my life. I do want to heal myself and become a completely different person. I will continue THE WORK and one day will come to your Advanced Workshop. This is my sub-intention 🙂 You ARE making a history, and I am sending my gratitude to you.
Spending a few minutes in meditation can restore your calm and peace.
Hi thank you for taking the time to write this article. It was really informative and I am glad I came across it by sheer coincidence. Keep on writing!
Thank you Dr.Joe Dispenza for your great wisdom. You are so AMAZING! I am reading your book YOU ARE PLACEBO! WOW! My life has changed for the better and my world is very peaceful right now and will always be forever. I feel my level of consciousness go up and up and I meditate everyday. I feel gratitude everyday and I am going wow my life is amazing. Thank you for turning my life around for the better. Thanks Kim
I am speechless
Thanks,