I Will Be Grateful

5 Principles Of Reiki - #3 Just For Today, I Will Be Grateful

Reiki - Reiki is a Japanese healing art administered by the “laying on of hands” and the transfer of healing energy. The term Reiki is a combination of rei meaning life and ki, meaning energy. As an alternative medicine, Reiki is considered energywork using spiritually guided life force energy.

Reiki Principles - Dr. Mikao Usui, the founding father of Reiki taught his students the 5 Reiki Principles, also called Reiki Ideals or Reiki Precepts. Usui based these principles on the teachings of the Meiji Emperor of Japan and intended them to be a pattern for living a life of peace and harmony.

#3 Just For Today, I Will Be Grateful

I Will Be Grateful - Adapted from the original translation, just for today, we shall count our blessings. We are often too caught up in the complexities of life to appreciate what we have, too busy to “stop and smell the roses”.

Places to go, people to see, things to do and little time for yourself. Little time for reflection, to appreciate your family, your health, your surroundings. Often those who do take time to appreciate and are grateful are those who have lacked at some point in the past, someone who has struggled for what they now appreciate as a reward. The lesson is in the struggle or the lack. A child who has never had a pair of shoes will be grateful for a pair, a cancer survivor appreciates life more than one who has never suffered illness or faced death.

When you realize that you must stop and take time to be grateful, to give thanks for your blessings, first stop and identify those things you are grateful for and discover why. What led you to this point, why are you grateful for love, family, health, success or material possessions?As you stop to think about your many blessings, you naturally gravitate to the positive aspects of our life. Once you claim these positive aspects and claim them as your own, then you can truly be grateful.

It’s not always easy. It is difficult to be grateful, to give thanks, when things are not right in your world. In the face of failures or illness, your own or that of loved one, you will feel as though there is nothing to be grateful for. Now you are focused on the negatives, a situation that will pull you down. To begin healing and the journey back toward the light (so to speak) you must shift back to appreciation of the good things in your life.

Positive Energy - As a bonus, as you become filled with gratitude and make a conscious effort to express it regularly, the positive energy within will attract more abundance in your life, more to be grateful for. Luck? Coincidence? Or the Universe manifesting positive energy and gratitude?

- It helps to keep a gratitude journal or a list that you can post or carry so that you can see those things you are grateful for. You may discover that there is a pattern in the positive things in your life. Your list and daily gratitude habit will help you focus and help carry you through difficult times.