Maria Arpa
At the risk of being accused of becoming American, our work in New York reminds me that this week is a time for gratitude. A few months ago I remembered that I had forgotten to give gratitude and I said I would make time to give thanks and remember my blessings.
So for this week, I want to talk about the spirit of gratitude and its connection to the Dialogue Road Map.
Gratitude is a state of being. I get into that state when I am able to recognise and acknowledge the gifts in my life. The gifts in my life show up when I am open to receiving them. And isn’t it amazing that there are times in our life when we most need a gift to show up but we are in such a state of deprivation that we cannot be open to receiving.
The other week I walked to a sacred site. As I walked I felt waves of gratitude and I was able to express them to myself. This is a regular practice for me and it is becoming a space of delight and bliss within me. But it didn’t happen suddenly. It’s been a process over many years. At a time when I was not enjoying my life very much, I realised that I had control over my thoughts. So on a daily basis I would force myself to come up with 10 positive things about a person or situation in my life that was bothering me. Some days I would find it hard to get past 3 or 4 and I realised that I had little gratitude, though I might not have been able to put those words to it at that time. Over time I found it easy to get to more than 10 things and I could see how it was positively affecting my day to day. The scenery started to change.
How does the Dialogue Road Map help? How we use language and words can have a direct effect on our nature. The Dialogue Road Map helps us to use words to express appreciation in ways which go beyond the superficial ‘thank you’ taking us into a deeper and more connected state with self, other and community.
If you really want to understand the power of words, check out the work of Masaru Emoto.
Try coming up with 25 things in your life to be grateful for. Then allow yourself to feel some joy throughout your whole body for all these gifts and now put this into words that express appreciation for all that you have. It is not possible to fail, the only thing that can happen is you struggle to complete it. If that happens, you choose when you give up trying to do it.
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