How could any self-help teacher not teach the lesson of gratitude? Perhaps it’s because it is a very big lesson that takes many years to digest, especially for those dealing with the mental anguish of addiction onset by anxiety. So, what is gratitude?
“Gratitude is the heartfelt appreciation for kindness received or benefits gained. It involves acknowledging and being thankful for the positive aspects of one's life or the actions of others.” — Artificial Intelligence
That is one single definition. Gratitude can emerge just from the feeling or the sensation of the release of stress and anxiety. Gratitude is a feeling that would be difficult to explain to a young child who might just experience gratitude as joy. Gratitude is comfort in a single moment. Imagine the gratitude you would feel if you were standing on the street and a bus flipped over, slid 60 feet, and missed you by inches, leaving you unscathed! We’d all experience immense gratitude in that moment, no matter how chaotic our regular lives are.
Gratitude is a really pleasant feeling. When we are chronically anxious, it’s difficult to feel gratitude because our focus is on perceived danger. Anxiety activates the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the fight, flight, or freeze response. There is much to learn about how the brain switches to different modalities in response to anxiety. When we experience anxiety regularly, it becomes patterned and routine, and we become trapped in that state. We are creatures of habit, repeating behaviors regardless of their outcomes.
Even if we have everything in the world and feel happy, we might not recognize lingering anxiety from earlier times. Complete freedom from anxiety is impossible; we can only work to maintain balance and presence of mind. As we progress on this path, our mind will always test us. The mind is programmed to worry, think, solve, judge, and strategize constantly. It tries to survive by figuring out how to gain or avoid loss.
When your superconsciousness, which sits above the mind, tells the mind to relax, the mind resists. The more you try to rest the mind, the more it resists until you understand this: the mind is everything and can never be stopped or forgotten. Superconsciousness aims to help the mind relax and enjoy being. It provides parameters and boundaries to exist more fluidly without wasting energy on worry.
High consciousness and the mind's ego are business partners. When the mind feels anxious, we should feel gratitude for its vigilance. Superconsciousness takes deep breaths, assesses the problem, and brings the mind back to the present moment to learn, experience, and feel gratitude. The mind will eventually feel happy with this approach.
If you struggle to find gratitude, pretend. That is a powerful survival tool. Say "gratitude" 400 times in one day. Every time you have a negative thought, think the word "gratitude" right after. Inhale gratitude, exhale negative anxious behavior patterns. Look out the window when you wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, I’m grateful to be here," no matter what stresses you out. The mind will cling to these patterns eventually, and gratitude will shine through. It works the same way negativity does. We whisper negative words to ourselves, start to believe them, and they become true. Manifest things with words in your mind. Manifest gratitude.