Your dream life is waiting for you, if only you choose to take hold of it. I firmly believe this is true for everyone.
The reason we’re still waiting is because we’ve been going about getting it all wrong. We may have tried to solve the problem of manifesting a good life head-on, like someone with a hammer who thinks every issue is a nail.
Like most secret knowledge in the universe, we have to let go of control to tap into a power that is greater than anything you are capable of on your own. To gain the world, you must first be able to let it go.
In the season of Thanksgiving, you have the opportunity to embrace the power of gratitude in a way that you’ve never done before—but you must fully commit.
Here’s how:
3 Steps to Manifesting Through Gratitude
Begin your journey to experiencing the immeasurable bounty of wealth around you with three conscious steps:
1. Reset Your Expectations
Close your eyes and picture the worst possible version of your life. Assume every bad break turned against you. Imagine that the people and things you love were gone, and your ability to enjoy anything stripped away. You are left with nothing.
2. See in a New Way
Once your expectations have been reset, and you’re no longer comparing yourself to a version of an ideal life, but rather the worst possible scenario, it’s time to see anew. Look around you and count up all the things you treasure and why.
Think of your family and friends, your skills, your health, and possessions as an unexpected bounty given to you freely from above. Everything you could possibly want to be happy is already yours, and nothing you lack is ever actually needed.
3. Adopt a New Default State of Mind
Step into a world of deep abundance. Choose to see the world as a museum of passion projects, personalities, and beauty—down to the most mundane. Let yourself be slightly amused by things, rather than annoyed, and you will enter a satisfaction that few in this life attain.
Manifest More
If you have made it this far and are actively practicing what I’ve suggested, I suspect you need no further instruction. You already know intuitively what I mean.
However, for those trying to wrap their head around the process from the outside, let me explain more concretely.
If you have your health, your senses, and gratitude in your heart, then you already have riches enough for a dozen lifetimes.
The magic of gratitude is that it allows you to see the world in new dimensions. It’s as if you’re wearing a virtual reality headset that lets you see things as they really are, while others are quite probably walking around with a veil over their eyes.
Gratitude lets you see the abundance of riches we already have access to and can essentially call forth at any time. You don’t need more when you have this kind of abundance. The only thing you’re lacking right now, from your vantage point, is the capacity to see it and take advantage of it.
What are the riches I speak of?
- Finding joy in seeing your friends and family succeed in life
- Realizing that your deepest, most uncontrollable belly laugh regularly stars in your future
- Knowing the best friend you’ll ever have may be someone you haven’t yet met
- Deciding to get in the best shape you’ve ever been in
- Reading endless books and stories to help you feel things you’ve never felt
- Having an endless depth of knowledge to be gained about the God who created you
- Recognizing the wabi sabi beauty of the seasons as they each pass into the next
I could go on and on—there are a million pleasures unique to the particular way you see and perceive the world.
The main sense in which I use the word manifest is to call forth resources that are already freely yours.
There is, of course, another sense in which gratitude manifests even more strongly.
To those who are given much, even more will be provided. This sentiment is true in the proverbial sense, and I have seen it with my own eyes. Grateful people seem to attract the good stuff and good people in life, making them even richer in the truest sense of the word. Why not open yourself up to that possibility while choosing to enjoy life now with everything you’ve got?
I wish you the happiest Thanksgiving, one filled with a new appreciation for gratitude. I trust that gratitude will transform your life with goodness and spill over into the lives of those you love.
