So many spiritual people emphasize gratitude, I know myself as well have endorsed it. Like a great commercial with sunsets and flying birds and little children skipping and singing and a woman says ” I am so grateful for …. it makes me feel wonderful and I can enjoy everything life has to offer, blah blah blah.” Just like the many prescription drugs available, we can have whatever reality we want based on a concoction of chemicals. We can buy whatever we want, thinking it will give us happiness, but its as fleeting as a chocolate bar. One minute its there, next minute we ate it. Gone, forever. Anyways, I don’t want to get too emotional or carried away with my happiness affair with chocolate, we have some important things to cover. Here we go!
Gratitude is a beautiful emotion but for some its very eluding. When down in the dumps, depressed or just plain enraged with life, its pretty damn hard to feel gratitude. Why is that? Well, we cant see what we don’t feel. The darker emotions tend to carry a heavy frequency, which also means its harder to move out of it, and harder to see truth through it. Its like swimming in water, your in it, until you get out and even then your still soaking wet. It takes a while for it to dry off. Once the darker emotions pass then we can feel lighter and brighter. However, because its lighter it means it can easily be missed, its very subtle and it needs awareness to be maintained. Thats why if something bad happens its easier to get in the dumps than to maintain the happiness. Why am I telling you this? Because, by knowing that different emotions carry different frequencies we can focus on creating awareness and paying attention to the more subtle energies in life. As we do this, we cultivate peace, happiness and joy. Which are all higher frequencies. Gratitude is also an expression of a very high frequency and it is when we feel connected to life around us. It is when we actually SEE life.
I went to watch the sunrise this morning and as I was staring out to the ocean and watching the sun come up, I had an insight. I have heard the saying many times before and its funny how we can hear it, and even say it but until we have that ‘Aha’ moment its really just shallow. As I was having my own mini commercial about how great life was, I realized that ‘ everything is a gift’. It all comes from the Divine Mother, and like a mother she cares for us deeply. She gives us everything relentlessly. She loves us!! SOOO Freaking much. She is the mother that cant wait for your phone call. She is the mother that sends you money when you totally messed up. She is the mother that will give you whatever you want because she wants to see you happy. She sacrifices herself for you.
You are her life, blood and bones. You are made of her and she cherishes you. You are here because of her. This life is truly a gift and as quickly as it was given, it can be taken away. All of it. Nothing is yours. Everything was given to you. For a short time on earth, your body is yours, your house may be yours, your clothes is yours. But it can be stolen, it can be lost, it can be taken. Nothing is yours and that is the illusion.
Our unhappiness comes from attachments to nouns; people, places and things. We think because we have paid with something it is ours. But we are never satisfied. We are empty. When we buy something for ourselves, its good. But when someone gives us something as a gift. We cherish is, we keep it for years even if we don’t like it.. like an ugly sweater. But because it was a gift we give it more meaning, it becomes significant. It became a material symbol of the heart, its significance becomes deeper than face value. 
We get so attached to our things, to our people, to our friends, to our family. But we forget, they are not ours. In addition to them not being ours, they are a gift and when we stop seeing them as a gift, we lose gratitude, we loose appreciation. How many times are you present with the people you love? How many times do you act with them as though this is possibly the last time you will ever see them? Not much… usually we are so caught up in our own shit that we do not even realize we are not here. We are not giving each other our greatest gift, our presence. This is how we form regret. Because, people are a gift and they will not alway be around. One day, the Great Mother will take them back and we will be left with our memories. But will they be full ? Or Empty? 
I urge you to feel life in a different way. To really see life as a gift, because we are only borrowing. We are only having a brief experience of human existence and it is fleeting.
Tell your family you love them, kiss that person you love with all of the feeling in your bones. Take a breath as though it was your last, savour it. Walk on the earth with eyes open that this is what I am made up of, all the food I eat comes from here and to here I will return. And reflect on the age old saying “money can’t buy happiness”. Because life is the ultimate gift and it was given to you, not bought.
Cherish every moment, it is so precious, it is a gift.
