I wasn’t living. I was surviving – from day to day and from paycheck to paycheck, and I would no sooner solve one life problem than more problems would appear.
But then something happened that would change everything in my life from that day forward. I discovered a secret about life, and as a result of my discovery one of the things I began to do was practice gratitude each day. As a result of this, everything in my life changed, and the more I practiced gratitude, the more miraculous were the results. My life truly became magical.
For the first time in my life I became debt free, and shortly after that I had all the money I needed to do whatever I wanted. Problems in my relationships, work, and health disappeared, and instead of facing daily obstacles, my days became filled with one good thing after another. My health and energy increased dramatically, and I felt better than I had in my twenties. My relationships became much more meaningful, and I enjoyed more good times with my family and friends in just a few months than I had in all the previous years.
More than anything else, I felt happier than I thought it was possible to feel. I was blissfully happy – the happiest I had ever been. Gratitude changed me, and my whole life magically changed.
Bring The Magic into Your Life
No matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what your current circumstances, the magic of gratitude will change your entire life!
I have received letters from thousands of people in the worst imaginable situations who have changed their lives completely by practicing gratitude. I have seen miracles take place in health where there seemed to be no hope. I have seen marriages saved, and broken relationships transform into magnificent relationships. I have seen those in total poverty become prosperous, and I have seen people in depression catapult into joyful and fulfilling lives.
Gratitude can magically turn your relationships into joyful and meaningful relationships, no matter what state they are in now. Gratitude can miraculously make you more prosperous so that you have the money you need to do the things you want to do. It will increase your health and bring a level of happiness beyond what you’ve ever felt before. Gratitude will work its magic to accelerate your career, increase success, and bring about your dream job or whatever it is you want to do. In fact, whatever it is that you want to be, do, or have, gratitude is the way to receive it. The magical power of gratitude turns your life into gold!
As you practice gratitude, you will understand why particular things in your life may have gone wrong, and why certain things might be missing from your life. As you make gratitude a way of life, you will wake up each morning so excited to be alive. You will find yourself completely in love with life. Everything will seem effortless. You will feel as light as a feather and happier than you’ve ever felt before. While challenges may come, you will know how to overcome them and learn from them. Every day will be magical; every day will be filled with far more magic than when you were a child.
Is Your Life Magical?
You can tell right now how much you have actually used gratitude in your life. Just take a look at all of the major areas in your life: money, health, happiness, career, home, and relationships. The areas of your life that are abundant and wonderful are where you have used gratitude and are experiencing the magic as a result. Any areas that are not abundant and wonderful are due to a lack of gratitude.
It’s a simple fact: when you’re not grateful you cannot receive more in return. You’ve stopped the magic from continuing in your life. When you’re not grateful you stop the flow of better health, better relationships, more joy, more money, and the advancement of your job, career, or business. To receive you have to give. It’s the law. Gratitude is giving thanks, and without it you cut yourself off from the magic and from receiving everything you want in life.
The bottom line of ungratefulness is that when we’re not grateful, we’re taking; we’re taking things in our life for granted. When we take things for granted we are unintentionally taking from ourselves. The law of attraction says that like attracts like, so if we take something for granted, we will be taken from as a result. Remember, “whoever does not have gratitude, even what he or she has will be taken from him or her.”
Most certainly you have been grateful at various times in your life, but to see the magic and cause a radical change to your current circumstances, you have to practice gratitude and make it your new way of life.
The Magic Formula
“Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.”
Ibn Khaldoun Al Muqaddima (1332–1406)
SCHOLAR AND STATESMAN
Ancient myths and legends say that to bring forth magic a person must first say “the magic words.” Bringing forth magic from gratitude works in the same way, and first you must say the magic words: thank you. I cannot begin to tell you how important the words thank you are for your life. To live in gratitude, to experience the magic in your life, thank you must become the two words you deliberately say and feel more than any other words. They need to become your identity. Thank you is the bridge from where you are now, to the life of your dreams.
The Magic Formula:
Deliberately think and say the magic words, thank you.
The more you deliberately think and say the magic words, thank you, the more gratitude you feel.
The more gratitude you deliberately think and feel, the more abundance you receive.
Gratitude is a feeling. So the ultimate aim in practicing gratitude is to deliberately feel it as much as you can, because it’s the force of your feeling that accelerates the magic in your life. Newton’s law is one for one – what you give you receive, equally. That means that if you increase your feeling of gratitude, the results in your life will expand to be equal to your feeling! The truer the feeling, the more sincerely grateful you are, the faster your life will change.
When you discover how little practice it takes, how easy it is to incorporate gratitude into your daily life, and when you see the magical results for yourself, you will never want to return to the life you used to live.
If you practice gratitude a little, your life will change a little. If you practice gratitude a lot every day, your life will change dramatically and in ways that you can hardly imagine.
A Magical Book
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)
35TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
In this book, there are 28 magical practices that have been specifically designed so that you learn how to use gratitude’s magical power to revolutionize your health, money, job, and relationships, and to make your smallest desires and your biggest dreams come true. You will also learn how to practice gratitude to dissolve problems and transform any negative situation.
You will be captivated while you read this life-changing knowledge, but without practicing what you learn, the knowledge will slip through your fingers, and the opportunity that you attracted to easily change your life will be gone. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, you need to practice gratitude over 28 days, so that you impregnate your cells and your subconscious mind with it. Only then will it change your life – permanently.
The practices are designed to be completed over 28 consecutive days. This allows you to make gratitude a habit and a new way of life. Practicing gratitude in a concentrated effort over consecutive days guarantees that you will see the magic take place in your life – and fast!
Within each magical practice is a wealth of secret teachings that will expand your knowledge in tremendous ways. In each practice you will understand more and more about how life works, and how easy it is to have the life you’ve dreamed of.
The first twelve practices use the magical power of gratitude for what you have now and for what you’ve received in the past, because unless you’re grateful for what you have, and what you’ve received, the magic won’t work and you won??
?t receive more. These first twelve practices will set the magic of gratitude into motion immediately.
The next ten practices use the magical power of gratitude for your desires, dreams, and everything you want. Through these ten practices you will be able to make your dreams come true, and you will see the circumstances of your life magically change!
The last six practices take you to a whole new level, where you will be saturating gratitude into every cell of your body and mind. You will learn how to use gratitude’s magical power to help other people, dissolve problems, and improve any negative situation or circumstance you may encounter throughout your life.
You don’t need to clear your calendar, because each of the practices has been specifically created to fit into your everyday life, whether it’s workdays, weekends, holidays, or vacations. Gratitude is portable – you take it with you wherever you go, and then wherever you go, the magic happens!
If you miss a day, you will most likely lose the momentum of what you have done. To ensure that you don’t reduce the magic, if you miss a day, count back three days and repeat the practices again from there.
Some practices are designed for the morning, and others are designed to do throughout the day, so read each day’s practice first thing in the morning. Some practices will need to be read the night before because they begin when you wake, and I will tell you when to do this. You might want to read the next day’s practice every night before you go to sleep, in order to be prepared. If you do, make sure to reread the practice again in the morning.
If you don’t want to follow the 28 magical practices consecutively, you can also use them in other ways. You could choose one magical practice that addresses an important subject in your life that you want to change or improve, and you could do that practice three days in a row or every day for a week. Or you could do one magical practice a week, or two practices a week, the only difference being that it will take you longer to see the changes in your life.
After the 28 Days
Once you’ve completed the 28 magical practices, you can use particular practices to increase the magic where or when you have a specific need, such as for health or money, or if you want to receive your dream job, have increased success in your work, or improve a relationship. Or to continue the practice of gratitude you can open this book at random, and whichever practice you open to is the one you attracted, so it’s the perfect one to do that day.
At the end of the 28 magical practices, there are also recommendations of practices you can use in combination, which will accelerate the magic in specific areas of your life.
Can you overdo gratitude? Never! Can your life become too magical? Hardly! Use the practices over and over, so that gratitude seeps into your consciousness and becomes second nature to you. After 28 days you will have rewired your brain, and implanted gratitude in your subconscious mind, where it is automatically the first thing that comes to your mind in any situation. The magic you experience will be your inspiration, because as you incorporate gratitude into your days, they will be nothing short of spectacular!
What Are Your Dreams?
Many of the magical practices are designed to help you achieve your dreams. Therefore, you need to get clear about what you really want.
Sit down with a computer or pen and paper and make a list of what you really want in every area of your life. Think through every detail of what you want to be, do, or have in your life – in your relationships, career, finances, health, and every area that is important to you. You can be as specific and detailed as you like, but remember your job is simply to list what you want, not how you’re going to get what you want. The “how” will be done for you when gratitude works its magic.
If you want a better job, or your dream job, then think about everything you want the job to be. Think about the things that are important to you, such as the type of work you want to do, how you want to feel in your job, the type of company you want to work for, the kind of people you want to work with, the hours you want to work, where you want your job to be, and the salary you want to receive. Get very clear about what you want in the job by thinking it through thoroughly and writing all the details down.
If you want money to educate your children, work out the details of their education, including which school you want your children to attend, the cost of the school fees, books, food, clothing, and transportation, so that you know exactly how much money you will need.
If you want to travel, then write down the details of the countries you want to visit, how long you want to travel for, what you want to see and do, where you want to stay, and the means by which you want to travel.
If you want a perfect partner, then write down every detail of the characteristics you want that person to have. If you want improved relationships, write down the relationships you want to improve, and what you want them to be like.
If you want more health, or an improved bodily condition, be specific about what ways you want to improve your health or body. If you want a dream home, then list every detail of what you want the home to be, room by room. If there are specific material things you want, like a car, clothes, or appliances, write them down.
If you want to achieve something, such as passing an exam, getting a degree, a goal in sports, succeeding as a musician, doctor, writer, actor, scientist, or businessperson, or whatever it is you would like to achieve, write it down and be as specific as possible.
I would strongly urge you to find the time to maintain a list of your dreams throughout your life. Write down the little things, the big things, or what you want this moment, this month, or this year. As you think of more things add them to the list, and as you receive things, cross them off the list. An easy way to do a list of what you want is to divide it into categories of:
Health and body
Career and work
Money
Relationships
Personal desires
Material things
And then just add the things you want to each category.
When you get clear about the things you want, you are giving a definite direction to the way you want gratitude’s magical power to change your life, and you are ready to begin the most exciting and thrilling adventure you’ve ever been on!
Day 1
Count Your Blessings
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
Willie Nelson (B. 1933)
SINGER-SONGWRITER
You will have heard people say to count your blessings, and when you think about the things you’re grateful for, that’s exactly what you’re doing. But what you may not have realized is that counting your blessings is one of the most powerful practices you can ever do, and it will magically turn your whole life around!
When you’re grateful for the things you have, no matter how small they may be, you will see those things instantly increase. If you’re grateful for the money you have, however little, you will see your money magically grow. If you’re grateful for a relationship, even if it’s not perfect, you will see it miraculously get even better. If you’re grateful for the job that you have, even if it’s not your dream job, things will begin to change so that you enjoy your job more, and all kinds of opportunities for your work will suddenly appear.
The flipside is that when we’re not counting our blessings, we can fall into the trap of unintentionally counting negative things. We count negative things when we talk about the things we don’t have. We count negative things when we criticize or find fault with other people, when we complain about traffic, waiting in lines, delays, the government, not enough money, or the weather. When we count negative things they increase too, but on top of that, with every negative thing we count, we cancel out blessings that were on their way. I have tried both – counting my blessings and counting negative things – and I can assure you that counting your blessings is the only way to have abundance in your life.
“Better to lose count while naming your b
lessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles.”
Maltbie D. Babcock (1858–1901)
WRITER AND CLERGYMAN
First thing in the morning, or as early in the day as you can, Count Your Blessings. You can write out your list by hand, type it on a computer, or use a special book or journal and keep all of your gratitude in one place. Today, you are going to make a simple list of ten blessings in your life you are grateful for.
When Einstein gave thanks, he thought about why he was grateful. When you think about the reason why you’re grateful for a particular thing, person, or situation, you will feel gratitude more deeply. Remember that the magic of gratitude happens according to the degree of your feeling! So with each item on your list write the reason why you’re grateful for it.
Here are some ideas for writing your list:
I am truly blessed to have what? ,
because why? .
I am so happy and grateful for what? ,
because why? .
I am truly grateful for what? ,
because why? .
With all my heart, thank you for what? ,
because why? .
After you’ve finished making your list of ten blessings, go back and read each one, either in your mind or out loud. When you get to the end of each blessing, say the magic words three times, thank you, thank you, thank you, and feel the gratitude for that blessing as much as you possibly can.
To help you feel more gratitude, you can be grateful to the Universe, God, Spirit, goodness, life, your greater self, or any other concept you are drawn to. When you direct gratitude toward something or someone, you will feel it even more, and your gratitude will have even more power, and create even more magic! It’s the reason why indigenous and ancient cultures chose symbols like the sun to direct their gratitude toward. They were simply using physical symbols to represent the universal source of all goodness, and in focusing on that symbol they felt more gratitude.