The Healing Balm of Gratitude

An attitude of gratitude! If all of mankind could live this mantra day in and day out, I would be out of business as a therapist. And this is what a seek to do! Now I don’t mean put myself out of business, I do intent to spread the work of gratitude out into the world. On a personal basis, this is part of my journey from therapist to Life Mastery Coach as I propose moving the work of trauma recovery outside the therapy room and into our homes, community and society.

The #Break Free Movement provides a platform for all to step outside the world of fear and misery from the fractures of the past traumas to gathering together with what we have and away from focusing on what we lost, do not have or fear.

As I ponder on how to begin to guide someone who is in the depths of pain, fear and grief, the first words that come to me is gratitude. As a society, I fear we have lost sight of having a daily sense of appreciation and exercise of counting our many blessings. Now I do not believe this is because we are intentionally ungrateful. Rather, we have grown to be more driven, competitive and desirous to do more in today’s world. Our world is smaller as we have almost instantaneous access to more. This ‘more’ is the more others are doing, the more possibilities, the more “shoulding” we could be doing, the more of endless possibilities. This leads to faster learning and greater connections and more tangible avenues and opportunities. Yet it also leads to ‘forgetting’ to be grateful for the human being of who, where and how we are today.

We forget that ‘being’ is enough. Unfortunately, this leads to feeling not good enough. Then when ‘not good enough’ dominates, my business as a therapist explodes with client after client seeking for answers on how they became ‘not good enough’. And additionally, by the time they come to my office, they have swum in the swamp of feelings of failure for so long, it is infused into their being as elements of unresolved grief and trauma. This is a tragedy in and of itself.

As a result, as a therapist, I am addressing the back end of the issue—versus leading the way for healthy living. Now what does this have to do with gratitude? Everything! As gratitude is the front end of your road to healthy living.

By #breaking free from my therapeutic role at the backend end, I am free to be the leader as I feel called to—that is, living the tenants of the Life Mastery Coach I have chosen to rise to.

I pick my words purposefully…I CHOSE to rise. I CHOSE to lead. I CHOSE to be. The #Break Free Movement is a platform in offering a place to likeminded leaders, role models and influencers to share their path of rising from their trauma to their triumphant success. And across the board, their first step has been CHOICE.

These leaders made a choice to take their trauma head on and meet it eye to eye. They began where they were at—where we all must begin. In taking their first step they started with what they had and embraced it with the love they organically carried within their hearts. This love manifests as gratitude.

Gratitude creates a mindset of being KIND. When we carry a sense of appreciation within our heart, we feel kind. Kindness extended is the practice of giving. As we engage in giving, the law set up by God takes over, that is, ‘you give you get tenfold back.’ And your life is enriched automatically in far more abundant ways than you give.

As we embrace this relationship with gratitude and do kind acts, and circle back around with a heart full of appreciation, then in addition to the tenfold return, our heart grows ten times bigger and we BE-come gratitude. This ‘Be-coming is alignment, as we are who we are created to be, that is we arrive at a place of ‘knowing’ –the place of now—the place of peace, joy and love…it just IS ( you BE-come your Ideal Self) We discover we are living in alignment of personal authenticity and a life of integrity.

This creates a momentum of increasing desire to not want to miss a moment of life. Hence, we are awake and embrace the NOW. We begin to see the things coming across our path and tend to grab hold of them, use them as needed for the good of others and ourselves…life be-comes easy as we learn its simply noticing the good stuff in life.

The magic of a grateful heart is we know when enough is enough. Since we know we are good enough—if not more, we are full. Full of joy and love. As our hearts celebrate the joy and love within, the yearnings of sharing these emotions naturally arise. As we have no inferior beliefs and programing jamming our circuits any longer, we eagerly seek to share with another and serve where we can.

Again, the law of giving and receiving ignites and expands beyond the one person we each are.

It is my wish, my prayer this holiday season that we take a moment to reflect. I encourage you –no, I challenge you to find the time—this very minute to ponder on gratitude and where this concept resides within you. I implore to find the good enough’ aspect of who you are and express appreciation for your creation, then share the ‘who” you are with all you come in contact. Then share your gratitude for them—friend, stranger and foe—all experiences are for our good…if we make them so.

#Break Free from your ‘not good enough’ thinking –as its ‘stinkin’ thinkin’’ and Be-come the ‘who’ you can CHOOSE to be. Then make the CHOICE to be KIND, live with INTEGRITY, CELEBRATE the miracle you are and give back in SERVICE because you can.

This is the vision and the service of the #Break Free Movement. If you desire to be a part of this community, we welcome you! If you have a story of rising beyond your trauma to triumph, please contact me. I would be most grateful to have your story part of the heroic influencers to show others there is hope and sure way toward a celebratory life.

To join us check out the #break Free Movement on Buzzsprout. If you have a journey of your own to share, join us by contacting me at drcheri@aplace2turn.com and we can get started!