Another year is gone, and our eyes are turned towards the New Year and like a new moon, we look at it with feelings of hope and freshness. But before we turn the page on the past year, let us complete any unfinished business. Have we forgotten something before we move ahead with our life journey? For we are all travellers towards the same destination, but with different roadmaps engraved in the lines of our hands. So each one’s journey will have different meanderings, scenery, and pitfalls.
Have we been grateful enough? Have we expressed our gratitude for having travelled so far? We have shared moments of joy and moments of sadness- and the full spectrum of life in between. But we never really appreciated the gift of life. The deep appreciation of life that makes us realise the power of gratitude.
Grateful for what?
Did you realise that your heart is working non-stop? During the past year it has been pumping life giving blood by contracting all its muscles and pushing the blood through kilometres and kilometres of blood vessels- it has done this over three and a half million times !!! Unsupervised, unnoticed, quietly and peaceful- while we have been enjoying life, working to earn our living and sleeping our tiredness away.
The miracle that is the US has been forgotten in the noise clutter of daily living! Yet all the time the miracle that is Us has been happening second after second. If we look at the 700 trillion cells that make our whole body, there are billions of chemical reactions that are happening each millisecond of our existence. In perfect harmony, any malfunction may spell death within a few minutes….
As a gross analogy, if we compute and add together all the processes that are happening in each of the factories in all the countries of the world- our human body has probably more chemical reactions per second than all of these man made factories put together!
Now that you have this information, do you realise the mega power of the software and hardware that you have been given? Yet we live our lives in ignorance of the greatness of our being, which we have “inherited” passively and have taken for granted all along.
If we were to rent or lease such an incredible being, what would be the price? Surely it would be much beyond our means! Yet because it is free, we have transgressed our boundaries, and many of us have slipped into the grey zone of abuse, and self-abuse. Or plainly negative mindsets, complaining about trivial matters yet missing the whole picture.
So let’s pay our rent, let’s settle our accounts. How? Simply by being grateful. Yes, as simple as this- Gratefulness is the key to settling our accounts, for it will defuse the negatives of the past, and prepare our mind to receive more goodness from each day. And it will empower us in all our daily actions and thoughts, for being grateful puts us in a different league, the winning league. Then we have no more petty complaints, we don’t let negative events impact us, we just flow through life, as we are connected to the superhuman within us.
By being grateful we become aware of a new dimension- the Wellness factor, for wellness is a journey and it is up to us to make the right choices in our daily living. It is not just about being healthy – it is about all the choices we make in all spheres of our life- physical, mental, emotional, social, professional and spiritual. Gratefulness is the compass that shows us the real values along this journey.
In the East, there is a very powerful meditative practice called the “Smiling Meditation”. This meditation teaches us how to express our gratefulness to the miracle that is within us. The smiling meditation can be practised easily. It goes like this, you can create your own modified version depending on how deep you wish to go. Relax , either sitting or lying down. Close your eyes, and focus on your breathing for 2-3 minutes. Then smile and bring the “smiley-ness” to your face muscles. Enjoy the warmth. This is releasing the happiness molecules within your system.
Then smile down to your throat and stomach and intestines, and move to your vital organs-heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, and you can cover each part of your body in this way. Take your time and send positive smile energy to your body. Relax, breathe, and let go. And say ‘Thank you” to these trillion cells that will hear your message and will answer back in making more molecules of happiness.
The effects of such a daily practice cannot be matched by any single or combined medication- this exercise genuinely releases the “feel good” factor in your system and keeps you grounded and prepared for living mindfully each moment of your life. Light and energised…
May you enjoy this New Year with grateful thoughts every day,
Dr Siddick Maudarbocus
Director
