Gratitude: The key to keeping your life moving forward positively

by Michol Mae

My grandmother was a spiritual woman, she was Blackfoot Sioux, and believed in a mix of traditional Native American beliefs and Christianity. One day she told me “Think positive and positive things will come.” I didn’t think much of it at the time, I was a teenager who was sent to a family she never knew and lost her mother and the family she had always known, I thought my world was in a tailspin that would never end. I walked a line in my teenage years, struggling to find myself, struggling to find my path, and struggling to move forward.





It was not an easy path but I made my way through it with no small number of scars to show for it, and I made it into college. I was working at the library in the college one day when my Grandmother passed, and I realized I had been so caught up in myself I missed out on getting to know her better, getting to know our heritage, and getting to know more about this family that I had become a part of. Little to I know that she had already given me the knowledge I needed, she already planted the seeds, and she already gave me enough to seek out answers to many of my questions.

I decided to start an experiment; I decided I would try her advice; I would think positive and keep a log. I selected the dates for which the experiment was to take place, I set the parameters and began. I kept a detailed journal, and there were many small blessings that would likely have not been considered if I hadn’t been doing the experiment, but that was part of what Grandmother was teaching me. I was retraining my brain. I was looking at even the small positives, and those small positives, that would have once passed unacknowledged, were now acknowledge as blessings. So the experiment continued and as I moved forward I noticed a difference in how I was thinking, but it is easy to be positive when there is now major adversity.

My life at the time consisted of going to a community college full time and working three jobs, two part time and one full time, and even still I was living pay check to paycheck. It was great to start thinking more positive but would I be able to think more positive if something major went wrong? It happened that a few major things did happen to go wrong, one of which was my car breaking down. Now, living pay check to pay check that was a big deal, and while I loved working on my car, I didn’t feel comfortable with this repair. Now here is where I really noticed a difference, instead of getting completely hysterical, and screaming to the heavens “WHY ME!?” I made myself think positive. So here I am retraining my brain to think positive and even in the face of adversity I was able to focus on my experiment and stick to the parameters. That same day my neighbor came over and let me know that he was a mechanic, it seems he saw me out at the car and saw that I was having trouble and he offered to help out, it was a wonderful affirmation that positive things do come if you can think positive.

I continued on this experiment, not allowing myself to slip into negative feels, keeping clear of the despair that I had become so well acquainted with after my mother passed away, and slowly finding my way back into the light. This experiment was a complete success for me, I was able to quantify what my grandmother said not just from a spiritual positions but from a proven experiment that I could explain to anyone, but could I explain it?

For years I had studied Shamanism, Celtic Magic, Witchcraft, Wicca, Buddhism, and of course growing up Catholic I had some knowledge of that already and all of them had a great many similarities. I came across The Secret a book that focuses on thinking positive to cultivate a successful and positive future, the book introduces the reader to the laws of attraction, stipulating that the universe doesn’t see negatives, so the more you think about a negative item, the more of that negative you get. One example given is if you think of bills, because you have so many and you are drowning, the universe hears bills, bills, bills, it does not hear you say no or I do not want the bills, so to get the results you want you have to change how you think.

The universal law that is present in The Secret gives you more of what you put out, so like Grandmother said, “If you think positive, positive things will come.” Well I knew by this time that it was true, it didn’t matter if I believed in some universal law, I had seen what changing your way of thinking could do for you first hand. By consciously making the decision to see the positive in every situation you are naturally a happier person. So I decided to give this book a try, I knew thinking positive helped me see things more positively, but could it draw things to me like this book claimed? Of course it can, and here is why, you actively retrain your brain to see the positive and then you train your brain to accept that things can happen for you, all the while you are growing your confidence in yourself and that is a major key to success.

Shortly after watching The Secret repeatedly (available on Netflix!) and reading the book I picked up a book The Magic by Rhonda Byrne, by page 8 I knew I had to write this piece because it all came together. My Grandmother’s teaching the studies that I had done in my early college years and the readings of a number of self-help books including The Four Agreements to The Secret and The Magic.

The Magic focuses in on Gratitude, showing a common connection among the main religions, “The major religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism all have gratitude at their core.” In many pagan cultures there is a belief that everything you do will return to you 3 fold, some believe it is 7 fold, but the general rule of thumb is that everything returns to you, so if you are positive, do positive things and think positive you will receive positive, and if you are negative, well you get the idea. Even science proves that every action has an equal or greater reaction, so wouldn’t you want to perform actions that are positive so that the reaction is positive? The book offers specific quotes that make it clear gratitude was always important to a happy positive life.

“Gratitude for the abundance you’ve received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue” - Muhammad

 “You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy” - Buddha

“If you rejoice in the way things are the whole world will belong to you” - Lao Tzu

“Whatever he is offered he accepts with joy” – Krishna

Beyond the specific quotes that are obviously advocating the use of gratitude the book mentions that Jesus himself said thank you before his miracles and King David spoke of giving thanks to the whole world for everything between the heavens and the Earth. The proof is not only in religious figures Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were also known to give thanks and be grateful every day, and the very author of The Magic changed her life by practicing gratitude. In fact when I did my experiment I was not focused on gratitude, but in retrospect it was a natural byproduct of positive thinking, I was naturally grateful for the good things, no matter how small or large.

Ultimately, you determine how you will think and respond to every little thing every day, and there are millions of choices in a day, and within every choice is an opportunity for you to think positively and gratefully. If you are skeptical try setting your own parameters (for a minimum of one month) and conducting your own experiment, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It’s not an easy task to retrain the brain, you have to make a conscious effort to turn a negative thought into a positive thought, and make an effort to be grateful, although being grateful is often a byproduct of thinking positive, you cannot be too grateful. I am naturally grateful every time someone shows me support, and I am grateful when people make time for me, and the more grateful and positive I am the more opportunities I seem to find, that is my affirmation, my validation, that Grandmother taught me the most valuable life lesson.

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