Day Twenty-Six: Gratitude without "have to"

DAY TWENTY-SIX
The gratitude thing, without “have to”


On Thanksgiving, and any other day of the year we want to feel more happy and clear in our lives we can be grateful. I will contend later that this gratitude is a side benefit, a fall out of being present and of doing the Work of Byron Katie. Which is to say, once we let go of our commitment to our unhappiness, and once we come out of the words that pull us away from the present, we are home to our “real” selves, and those “real” selves cannot help but be happy and grateful.

Good.

Be that as it may, today let’s just play in these two fields, the field of Now, and the field of gratitude. This can make life a simple minded thing, but a very happy simple minded thing.

When we sit on the toilet, be there with that and be grateful for the toilet, or our ability to get rid of that stuff, or for the food we ate, or the body that knows how to do what it does, or for our bathroom or whatever one we are in.


When we walk down a street, notice now and our feet, and be grateful for the ability to walk, and our two legs and our eyes that can see and what we are seeing and what we are hearing and the ability to know what we are doing now and the gift/ miracle of awareness and our breathing, and so on.


When we read this book be grateful for knowing how to read, and sensing our body, and the idea of sensing while we read and the playing around with attention we can do when we come back to sensing and our breathing and these ideas and anything else you want to be grateful for.


If you want to write down a gratitude list, cool, and see if you can be aware of your hand and eyes and breathing as you write down the words and the sensation in your chest. Good.