The Window of Gratitude

The Window of Gratitude

Will you do something for me? Go look out your window. It's okay, I' ll wait.

It doesn’t matter where you’re located. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night. Go to that window and look out. . .don’t glance. Even if it’s a view that you’ve seen hundreds of times before, take the time to slowly drink in everything that you see. Don’t filter the results or categorize them. Simply look with open eyes.

What will you see? It depends. You might see a neighbor walking their dog or the push and pull of traffic on a street or even just the bricks of the building next door. What you are seeing, in some sense, doesn’t really matter. It’s how you are seeing that makes all the difference. When you look out with eyes that are truly open, what you will see is life - real life, raw life, life in its purest form, replete with possibilities.

Everything out your window has the potential to be an epiphany, demonstrating the miracle at the heart of the mundane. Yes, the neighbor is walking his dog, but a sudden gust of wind can make fallen leaves spin around him like an enchantment. Yes, it is only the gridlock of traffic, yet a small tree blooming in the scrub of the road’s edge is trembling with tenacity and chance. Yes, there is nothing to look at but the bricks of the building next door, but if you crane your neck and look up, you can see Orion’s Belt glittering in the night sky.

Very few windows have a perfect view. So what you see depends on how you look and what you want to see. If all you choose to see is the absence of miracles, then all you will see are the things that appear to disturb your view - the things you wish weren’t there or were different. However, if you can look through that appearance of disturbance and see things as they really are, I guarantee that you will see the godhead waving back at you in that little bird, that fall of sunlight, or the shape of a cloud in the sky. When you do look, when you do truly see, you will fall to your knees in gratitude for this greatest of gifts wrapped up in the simplest of things. This is gratitude. The deep gratitude that changes your life. It opens your eyes and your heart and allows you to appreciate what you have rather than what is missing. It is the single most powerful source of inspiration to which you can align.

You only need bewilling to stop and pay attention to the plentitude of miracles that are unfolding all around you, willing to retrain your perception to see the beauty and blessings. . .in everything. This week, I have the deepest gratitude for all of you who have reached out to me with words of support and encouragement for this segment of my journey. I am overjoyed that so many of you see yourselves from young mothers trying to be the best that you can be, to those who deeply desire to create a life of meaning after challenging times, to those who simply are worn down by playing by long-accepted rules and living a life of seeming mediocrity. In opening my heart and my inner world to you, I wish you to know this truth: I am a direct reflection of you. A reflection of your light and your love and your limitless potential.
 

Retrain your perception to see the beauty and blessings...in everything

In all ways, we are exactly the same. I am no more special, no more accomplished, and no more intelligent than you are! I’ve experienced decades of challenges. Yet, today, I am able to see beyond the veil of what was unfolding to know this: Each perceived heartache and each unexpected tragedy was an invitation from a higher presence to break free of my perceived limitations. Real life is messy. Can any of us deny that? It can feel brutal. But it can be breathtakingly beautiful as well. The relentless inner call to a life of authenticity, underpinned by spiritual practices and rituals, is not a guarantee – or a free pass – from the messiness or the brutality of life. But it does deliver something much more valuable.

Live Authentically-