Gratitude is something I don’t express enough. Certainly not to the universe. I’ve challenged myself to a seven-day gratitude challenge. For the next seven days, I’m going to sincerely thank the Universe for everything. You might be wondering why I don’t do that for everyone and everything in my life. It’s due to my noticing that my gratitude, specifically to the Universe, has been lacking. It’s never a good idea to take what the Universe gives you for granted, as it might stop. It’s all energy. Send energy out, and energy comes back. Send no energy, and nothing comes back.

We are often reminded around the holiday season to be grateful for what we have and encouraged to give to those who are less fortunate. It’s a good message and reminder to people to stop their selfish pursuits and think beyond the end of their noses. We are all guilty of tunnel vision, focusing so tightly on our lives that we forget other things are happening and others are sharing the planet with us.

It’s especially important for those of us on the spiritual path to be aware of the energy we’re sending out. Not only during the holidays but for the rest of the year. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been preoccupied with life events for a while now and haven’t been sending out as much gratitude as I would have liked. Thus the reason for the seven-day challenge. I’m only doing seven days because that’s all I can do right now. If I can do more days, I will, and if I can remember to do it every day from now on, even better, but as usual, baby steps.

If you decide you want to start a gratitude challenge, pick the number of days, you want to do. If you can only manage two days, like over the weekend, that’s great. If you think you can go for a couple of weeks or a month, go for it. I’m only sending gratitude to the universe this time around. It’s a relationship and a connection I need to strengthen. If you want to work on being grateful only in your personal relationships, that works too. You can also choose to take every opportunity you get to show gratitude. You get to set the parameters of how you will express your gratitude and how long. The point is to express that gratitude with heartfelt sincerity.

Without the emotion behind it, it doesn’t mean anything. Words by themselves are hollow when it comes to gratitude. Whatever words you use must be accompanied by the feeling of being grateful. That’s hard for some people. We often don’t know how to be grateful. I’ve noticed others not saying thank you for the simplest things, like having a door held open for them or if someone helps them pick up something they dropped. I don’t know why, but it astonishes me that people act as if someone helping them is what the other person is supposed to do, and they don’t have to be thanked for it. It’s entitlement, and nothing will deflate the balloon of your gratitude than thinking that you are owed something by others.

It is my honest belief that strangers don’t owe you anything. To expect them to do anything for you or even to care about you is ridiculous. They don’t have to do anything for you. Yes, there is our general belief in decency, and most people follow it. Part of the expectation of behaving within the parameters of decency is that they will be sincerely thanked for their efforts. However, those who act as if the world owes them something will expect others to follow through with general decency and then refuse to thank them as if it is only right that someone does that for them, as if they are some kind of royalty. Then when an opportunity arises for them to do something to help someone else, the self-proclaimed royal can’t be bothered.

My soapbox was getting too high. Time to jump off. The point is that gratitude will cut through all of that if it’s strong enough and sincere enough. Love is the highest vibration one can project and receive. Gratitude is next in line. As long as you can keep your ego in check, sending out gratitude, even for the smallest things, can draw bigger things to you. The more you are grateful, the more the universe brings you things for which you can be grateful.

I’m sure some of you are struggling to find something to be grateful for in your life. The world has never been perfect. Strife and misery have been a part of the human experience and are likely to continue. This is not about world issues, though. This is about your relationship with yourself. If your personal situation is so messed up that the only thing you can be grateful for is that you opened your eyes this morning and were able to read this article, that’s a start.

No one is asking you to be so full of gratitude that you’re overflowing with it. When I see people like that, I often want to tell them to give it a rest. I’m talking about being grateful for the little things, like drinking coffee from your favorite mug. Being thankful that the roads on your way to work weren’t a skating rink with vehicles sliding all over like bumper cars. Smile because it’s raining instead of snowing. Enjoy snuggling into your warm bed for five more minutes. Relish feeling the sun on your face. Whatever it is, enjoy it, and feel grateful for it, no matter how small or trivial it might seem. It’s something. Everyone has something for which they can feel gratitude.

When I think about my life and how some things went horribly wrong, I look back and think about how even in the midst of what I thought was a disaster, some things turned out in my favor. Things or people I never had to see again. Situations I would never have to face again. The relief and gratitude I felt then were real. When I see others who are in worse predicaments than I am, the phrase, “There but for the grace of God,” rolls through my head. It’s a reminder that regardless of how bad I might think I have it, others have it worse than I do, and I need to shut up and be grateful for my circumstances. I also try to remember that my situation, however bad it might be, is temporary, and I can be grateful for that too.

Find where you are on the gratitude scale. If it’s easy for you, great. If it’s a challenge, that’s okay too. Do whatever you can. The Universe is willing to meet you wherever you happen to be. Any amount of gratefulness you can muster with genuine feeling that you can express in whatever way you choose is enough to allow the Universe to return it to you. The good thing about working with gratitude energy is that the Universe returns all forms of it in greater amounts than sent. Some people say it’s times seven. Others say times ten. I say it doesn’t matter as long as it comes back when I need it.

Challenge yourself, challenge your friends, keep track of your progress, and don’t be surprised if the Universe hands you more things to be grateful for right away.

Gratitude Challenge – Update – 7 days later.

I challenged myself to express gratitude to the Universe for seven days a week ago. I thought I could commit to that, and I managed to do it. I will continue to do it. Here’s what my experience of the 7-day challenge has been.

As I write this, it’s still December 2022, and I’m getting ready to move. I’ve been writing articles ahead of schedule to make sure I have enough to cover the time I might need in case things get sketchy. Health problems have exerted a lot of force over the past few years, causing the stable parts of my life to become unstable. All of it first chakra stuff. I won’t go into details as the energy of it was what I am trying to counteract with the gratitude challenge.

Instead of focusing my energy on the chaos around me and thus telling the Universe to serve me more of it, I chose to redirect my energy. I chose to focus on thanking the Universe for the wonderful circumstances it was leading me toward. I did that by using the past tense. I’ve been saying things like, “Thank you for everything. The cats are happy, and the view from our windows is great. It’s so quiet here. The walls and windows are well insulated. I can write my next book here, etc.” Whatever I could think of to say about whatever else I wanted to manifest, I thanked the Universe for it.

At the start of the challenge, things were tough for me. I couldn’t find any way to get to what I needed. The day after I started expressing my gratitude, I got a phone call from someone who gave me some concrete suggestions. Over the course of seven days, I got replies to email inquiries and phone calls. Things that I thought weren’t taken care of had been completed. Things I wanted to do were made easier, seemingly by coincidence. It wasn’t, of course. Divine timing always kicks in at the right time.

Overall, the biggest change has been in me. On the surface, not much progress has been made. There are still a lot of important details that need to be hammered out, but in small ways, steps have been made, directions established, and the path forward is a little less murky. It’s made me feel more optimistic and, dare I say it, hopeful. I’m going to go for another week and see what more I can be grateful for from the Universe.

Gratitude Challenge – Update – 21 days later.

I’ve continued to work on focusing my energy on being grateful at least once a day. I have to admit that I have not been as fastidious about it as I had hoped, but it’s still doing me good. Major things in my life have changed for the better. Even on the days when it’s been tough to be grateful, I have found something to be grateful for and devoted my energy to it as much as possible. I can say that things have improved for me, or it might be that when part of my circumstances changed, I changed too. We are always in the process of evolving, and we sometimes take our lives in directions we don’t expect. From my personal experience, if we keep gratitude at the top of our priority list, the energy of our lives and circumstances can change for the better. Challenge yourself to be grateful and see what can happen in your life.