“Gratitude opens the door to…the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” ~ Deepak Chopra
Opening your heart in gratitude releases a continuous stream of love energy that supports spiritual clarity, and creativity; strengthens the immune system, eliminates energy blocks, and diminishes fear, stress, and negativity. It brings us into emotional balance so we feel less irritated when someone cuts in front of us in traffic, or when our partner makes an insensitive remark. It also helps us better observe our reactions, stop negative self-talk, cease judging others, and access our inner guidance to make more enlightened choices. Most importantly, our overall quality of life improves because we wake up each day with positive energy, inspiration, and an appreciation for the many blessings in our lives.
When you open to the flow of this energy emanating from your heart, you will feel a distinct coherence as your brain and nervous system align vibrationally with your heart rhythms. You may sense a tingling or warming sensation, a buzzing, goose bumps, or a subtle vibration in parts of your body; or, you may feel like a sunburst, with waves of warm energy radiating from the center of your chest outward into the world. In such a state of openheartedness, you will feel relaxed and grateful toward everyone and everything around you, and enjoy a sense of peace, harmony, and universal love. The resulting emotional and spiritual balance not only frees you from being affected by the negative energies and choices of others, but also empowers you to feel secure and abundant in where you are in your own life, right now, without the need for comparison or judgment.
Opening the heart in gratitude can not only calm an anxiety-ridden brain, but can also flood the body with a healing vibration that releases internal energy blocks. Like an electrical circuit breaker that has been tripped, our natural healing ability may have shut down due to stress, fatigue, challenging life circumstances, or negative emotions. This shutdown leads to discordance in the heart’s rhythms and stress in the nervous system. When we open our hearts and focus on love as a healing vibration, we can alleviate many of these detrimental effects. Most of all, when we open our hearts in gratitude, fear, anger, and negativity cannot co-exist with this high vibrational energy.
The strongest electromagnetic field of energy in the human body emanates from the heart. When we operate as a source of gratitude, we generate a high frequency energy that brings body, mind, and spirit into harmonic resonance. When we tap into this energy, we rise above being a victim of our circumstances and become the creator of our reality. Listening to the guidance of our hearts, we tune in to this energy living in alignment with our soul’s journey.
Research has specifically demonstrated the effect of the vibrational frequency of love and gratitude on our physical world, and substantiates our potential ability to transform the world through radiating love. In his book The Hidden Messages of Water, Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto writes that kindness, love, gratitude, and beauty affect us, not just on emotional and spiritual levels, but on cellular and molecular levels as well. In discussing the impact that love can have on the world, he writes, “I particularly remember one photograph. It was the most beautiful and delicate crystal that I had so far seen—formed by being exposed to the words ‘love and gratitude.’ It was as if the water had rejoiced and celebrated by creating a flower in bloom. It was so beautiful that I can say that it actually changed my life from that moment on.”
Studies also show that feeling appreciated is one of our deepest emotional needs. Gratitude for the positive, supportive words and actions of another person opens us, in turn, to feelings of love, vulnerability, and intimacy. Therefore, we can honor others by expressing appreciation and gratitude for their being as part of our language of love. For example, even though we don’t expect our partner or friend to bring us coffee in the morning, make dinner, or clean up the kitchen, we can be spontaneously appreciative when we see they have done such tasks. We might say, “I appreciate that you think of me when you bring me that morning cup of coffee.” Or, “You realized how tired I was after work, and it was thoughtful of you to make dinner,” Or simply, “Thank you for cleaning the kitchen.” Expressing gratitude, especially for the little things that occur each day, contributes significantly to an evolution of love in our relationships and our world.
A gratitude practice lays the seed for all of your intentions of abundance whether it’s love, health, vitality, time, energy, or finances. Here are a few ways to open your heart in gratitude:
- Close your eyes, place a hand on the center of your chest, and focus your attention on your heart. Radiate love in the form of gratitude to yourself. Acknowledge the blessings of who you are and what you already have. Enhance the practice by repeating the mantra, “I am a blessed being,” or, “I bless myself, my fellow human beings, and the earth.”
- Keep a journal of things for which you’re grateful. Share three good things that happen each day with a partner or friend, and go out of your way to show gratitude when others assist you. Notice new things you’re grateful for every day. Opening the eyes of your heart to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your gratitude practice.
- Create a gratitude jar this year. When you experience a moment of gratitude, write it on a slip of paper and put it in the jar. Then on New Year’s Eve, empty the jar and review everything you wrote. The gratitude jar itself will become a constant reminder to pause and be appreciative.
- Deep, slow, intentional breathing will draw more oxygen into your body and open you to gratitude. While inhaling, breathe in love to yourself; when exhaling, breathe love out to others. Do this until your breath is rhythmic, and you feel calm and centered. Then, for at least a minute, let your energies expand outward in gratitude for yourself or someone else.
- Affirmations can be helpful in developing a practice of gratitude. This one by the poet e. e. cummings reminds us to affirm ourselves and life in this way: “I thank you God for this most amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky: and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.”
- Begin each day in gratitude with your partner, aware that there are challenges ahead but trusting that you will not be given more than you can handle. Visualize an image of the best your lives have ever been, and set an intention to make them even better no matter what has happened in your past.
- Walk in a state of gratitude with your partner. Remember to talk about your best times together. Identify experiences that made those times particularly fulfilling for each of you, and the elements that characterized them. Then integrate these elements when co-creating new experiences.
As a love ambassador, you can live in a constant stream of gratitude. You can wake up every morning with a sense of appreciation and a healthy anticipation for what the universe has in store for you. Before your feet even touch the floor, you can open your heart and give thanks for the day in front of you. You can trust that no matter what happens that day, it will be a good day. You accept life as it comes, trust that you are getting exactly what you need to spiritually grow at any given moment, and speak gratefully throughout the day about even the simplest things.
Opening your heart in gratitude brings us into grace. Through this opening, we experience an uninhibited flow of love energy. Living in this flow of love is grace in motion.
