This year our equivalent of the American Thanksgiving Day took place on October 2. It is not such a big family celebration as in the USA. But for us, there is a different story behind it. As the name suggests, we celebrate it out of gratitude for nature’s gifts at harvest time and, therefore, always in the fall. There is Thanksgiving Sunday when the priest symbolically blesses harvest gifts during Mass. Although we don’t celebrate this day so exuberantly over here, I think it doesn’t hurt to share some necessary thoughts about gratitude again.

Gratitude has taken up a lot of space in my life. I am extremely and consciously grateful for what and who I am privileged to have in my life. It seems the older I get, the more I realize the blessings. This feeling has intensified during the pandemic and has been fueled by the war in Ukraine. I am thankful that I live where I do, that I have a job where I don’t want to be missed, and that I have my own business, including my writing and my music, where I can fully develop. It can all be stressful and hectic, especially when you add in a family, a house, a big garden, and personal things and events. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am thankful for my family and everyone, including my in-laws. I am more than proud of my three grown-up children, who are now standing on their own two feet, mastering their lives with goals in mind, backbone in back, and virtues in the heart. What more could a mother wish for?

I also thought back to the time when I was not so aware of this all; a time when I wanted anything but not what I had. The more I wanted what I did not have, the more I lost contact with what I had and, therefore with myself. I was somewhere out there, but not in me. Gratitude began when I ended the escape or the escape ended when I realized how grateful I was for what I already had in my life.

That was a long introduction getting to the point: If we keep longing for something we don’t have, how can we see what is already embracing us? Turning around and feeling ourselves being embraced is the beginning of opening our eyes and seeing that we are at the center of so much love, gifted with everything that goes with it. When we reach this state of mind, we find ourselves in the power of creation itself. The deeper we dwell in gratitude for what we have, the more energy we put into it, and instead of sending out signs of “I don’t have,” we vibrate in “I have everything.” “I have everything,” what does that exclude?

The love and happiness we generate within ourselves put us in a state where we don’t even ask, but simply appreciate that we are getting something. I may not have what others have, but that is not the point. The point is that I am content and happy. When I am content and happy, what am I missing?

There will always be someone who may have more,
but also someone who may have less.
However, gratitude is the key to personal abundance.

In Love and Light