If you find yourself rolling your eyes at #gratitude, #grateful, #blessed or any of the other myriad of phrases that people use to prove to the world they’re thankful it could be because you recognize a lot of this is posturing. It’s become fashionable to shout out these word bites without having any meaning behind them. On top of it it’s often about ego – wanting to be recognized as someone who is elevated.
The irony here is, if you’re looking for approval, you’re anything but elevated.
In short typing out #grateful does not make you so.
That said, if you are someone who always uses one of those expressions and practices true thankfulness, then please excuse yourself from this discussion and take no offense. For the rest of you, I challenge you this Thanksgiving season to feel authentic gratitude and forgo these inane hashtags unless you actually mean them (me included).
Why does it matter?
Because the universe knows when you’re full of it and it will act accordingly.
When we acknowledge true thankfulness that’s when the world starts to work for us.
I’ve known many people over the years who talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk and they wonder why their life isn’t opening to them the way they think it should. They constantly post all this hippy dippy nonsense while deep down they feel like a victim, resentful of all the things they are “lacking.” They’re like a shiny apple on the outside but rotten on the inside. They’re #blessed – but if you bite into the skin, it’s all worms – #WhyDoesEveryoneHaveItBetterThan Me?
I don’t want to sound like I’m immune to this – I have fallen into this category myself plenty of times as well, who hasn’t?
We’re human!
It can be challenging to be truly thankful for things when you struggle and we ALL struggle…
The key is to look for the silver lining. We don’t have to be content or grateful with everything in our life (don’t you hate people like that anyhow?) we can however make it our authentic journey to concentrate on what we want more of instead of what we don’t.
So, this Thanksgiving make it a point to commune with the authentic THANK YOU.
By creating a practice of checking in with real gratitude instead of just hashtags that make us appear to be thankful, we’lll begin to attract what we want, we’ll become better people by taking the emphasis off ourselves so we can be open to helping others, and we’ll feel more content because we’ve truly counted our blessings not just stated them.
Main photo credit:iStock.com/Foxys_forest_manufacture
First photo credit: iStock.com/Ridofranz
Second photo credit:iStock.com/jenifoto
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Alyssa Collins hails from Minnesota, where snowy days were the perfect excuse to stay warm inside and write. Over the years, she turned that joy into a career and has authored numerous articles for various publications (under pen names). Email Alyssa via alyssa@ynot.com
