One of the free exercises in my Self Mastery Introductory Course is about gratitude. You will find gratitude is a common element of happiness. All the experts recommend various ways to practice it. When people take on this practice of gratitude they usually do it for several days and then it tails off. Other distractions get a hold of their attention and gratitude, which is a form of happiness, loses priority to habit.

Changing habits can take some time. But changing your attitude to one of gratitude usually has a hidden core belief that creates an obstacle of resistance. That hidden core belief often prevents us from living in gratitude. Eliminating this core belief can help make the change faster. It is a paradigm of the mind that filters the way we see the world. It filters our perception in such a way that the feeling of gratitude becomes nearly impossible to sustain.

What is that core belief that we can’t see that filters our view of the world? It is simply that we assume the people we love and the things we care about will be there next week. We are so familiar with our things like the comforts of running water, a warm place to stay, our eyesight, and the people we love, that we take them for granted.

Without awareness, we assume that not much will change between now and tomorrow. We live by the unseen assumption that not much will change in a month or a year. We look forward with optimism that we won’t lose what we have. We assume we will just gain more over time as if our lives were accumulating interest between now and when we pass on. We don’t acknowledge that the health of our bodies, our time, and the people we love are not gaining any time. You and the people you love are in the process of passing away from this world. When we don’t acknowledge that the landscape of our life is changing, and sometimes it changes fast, we end up not appreciating the time we have.

Our capacity and feeling of gratitude are inversely related to how much we take for granted. Those that walk around their day filled with gratitude take little to nothing for granted. People that live in an unseen belief paradigm that everything and everyone they care about will be there next week have a difficult time attaining a deep feeling of gratitude or sustaining the emotion for very long. For these people, gratitude may only come immediately following fear filled close calls of tragedy.

Core beliefs are often bubbles of perception. When those bubbles break, either we are angry that we have lost our illusion, or we are grateful to finally embrace life in a very intimate and precious way.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is. I believe in the latter.”
Albert Einstein.

I will post a self-awareness exercise in the Gratitude section of the member’s area that will help chip away at this blinding core belief. You will need to signup to access this audio.