Gratitude is a valuable process in a mindful lifestyle. Being grateful helps us break the chain of negative thinking that often plagues us and helps us cultivate loving compassion. If we make it a habit, it helps us understand that we control our thoughts––they do not control us.
A gratitude chain is particularly illustrative. “If I am grateful for this, then by inference I must also be grateful for…” and so it goes. The farther out along the chain we get we begin to understand the limitations of thought and are moved to surrender to the present moment. The chain in the graphic above reads, “I am grateful for flowers, [therefore I must also be grateful for] sunshine, day and night, earth rotation, solar system, astrophysics, universe, things unseen, forces unknown, surrender to something bigger than me, the limitations of thought, discomfort associated with not “knowing”, what is, what isn’t…” Try it!