Radical Gratitude: My Twitter Experiment

The missing key to the power of gratitude

How often do you say “Thank you”? A few times a day? Maybe ten times or so? Or is it more like you cannot remember when was the last time you actually said it? (Photo credit)

Much has been said about the power of gratitude. For instance, Dr. Robert Emmons maintains in his book Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier that practicing gratitude increases the sense of happiness by as much as 25%. He also found that gratitude can boost social relationships, creativity, and immune system.

Gratitude is also a key to the effective use of the Law of Attraction, or our power to create our lives. We cannot create something new until we are grateful for what we already have.

On the other hand, there are people who say something like, “I’m grateful for all the things I have. I just wonder why I have so little even though I work so hard.”

What is going on? Why gratitude works for some people and not for others?

The key is the quantity and quality of gratitude. And in this case, quantity brings quality.

Radical Gratitude

Most people just don’t use the power of gratitude often enough. They reserve it for some special occasions, like when something notably good happens. Or, they say their gratitude routinely with a feeling of obligation, not with a true feeling of gratitude.

The remedy is to boost the quantity of gratitude to see its effects.

So I started the Radical Gratitude movement. The idea is to say 100+ gratitude a day for seven days. Now this gets you going. Of course, you can continue after the seven days, but I think you get the hang of it in seven days.

Don’t just think about gratitude and how important it is. Say it aloud. When you say it, 100 times a day, it starts to sink in your feelings. You start to really feel the gratitude. And feeling is what matters in the process of creation. This is why I say quantity brings quality in this case.

As an experiment, I started this #RadicalGratitude on Twitter on Sunday night. I tweeted the idea along with some of the things, people, and events that I am grateful for. Here is how the experiment is unfolding. . .

How #RadicalGratitude spread around

Say it aloud, sing your gratitude. 100+ a day for a week. Take the #RadicalGratitude challenge. Your life will change.

Within several minutes, @lymanreed, whom I haven’t been talking with for over a year, tweeted back. @hnuttall also tweeted, with a question:

Do all 700+ things have to be different?

No. You don’t have to keep track of your gratitude. Just bump up the volume of your gratitude to 100 level. I mean, wouldn’t your spouse be thrilled to receive “Thank you” every morning and night?

Can’t think of 100+ things to be grateful for? Here are some of the things I’m grateful for:

• My vision, hearing, sense of smell, taste, and feeling. They bring me joy and pleasure.
• My arms, legs, head, butts, breasts, tummy, hair, skin . . . my health and beauty.
• Every food stuff in my fridge. When I go grocery shopping, I thank each item I purchase. Apples, bananas, kale, spinach, sweet potatoes, almonds, water. . .
• And the farmers, transportation, the people who work at the market, and the Earth.
• The sun, the air, the trees, flowers, the stars, the moon, the universe.
• The bills I need to pay — because I received the service and products.
• When I drive, I say “Thank you,” at every green light. And at every red light — for safety. And when I safely change lanes. (Oh, I remember @rawliving’s suggestion to send gratitude to cops. . .) I say thank you when I arrive at the destination, and I say thank you when I come home.
• Money in the bank, my apartment, my car, each of my furniture.
• Every book I’ve read and their authors. Thanks to Gregg Braden, Bruce Lipton, Seth Godin, Deepak Chopra, Karen Bishop, Rumi, Lao Tsu, just to name a few.
• My macbook, the internet, WP, twitter, facebook, that connects me with my friends all over the world

My gratitude to the people in my life. My mother, father, my friends. Sometimes, it’s hard to express gratitude to people who are so familiar, but don’t be shy. Tell each person how much they mean to you. Thank them for being the person they are.

Some more gratitudes:

• That I am in this country. My greencard.
• Artists who make the world so beautiful, including Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Rothko, Frankenthaler. . .
• As I recall my life, I’m grateful to all the events — they all served as learning experiences.
• I’m grateful for God, the Universe, the Nature, the Energy, whatever you call it, and my spirit guides.

@JaySchryer joined, mentioning his favorite music. He is also grateful for:

Big dreams, and the courage to pursue them. Common sense and intelligence to make them a reality

Sense of humor to laugh at myself should I fail

Friends near and far who keep me sane, family who keeps me insane.

@lance02 @thatgirlisfunny @EvitaOchel also joined. I just love the ripple effects! I’m grateful.

@SuperSpiritGirl says:

Feeling grateful today for so many things… Even feeling grateful to feel grateful

So true. And the side benefit of this Radical Gratitude was that I found some cool tweeters who share the same kind of passion for life.

I suggest you include not just the things you like, but also the things you don’t (like the red lights). Because they are all connected, like the sides of a coin.

The true power of gratitude

When I first did Radical Gratitude personally, I was just going through the motion in the beginning. I thanked each dish, bowl, glass, and cutlery when I washed the dishes. I thanked the toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss and water when I brushed my teeth. At mealtime, I put my hands together and said thanks three times. I said gratitude when I woke up in the morning and I said gratitude when I tucked myself in bed at night.

This may sound like crazy, but because I live by myself, it didn’t matter. I just kept saying “Thank you.”

Something changed. It was when I was taking a shower and saying thank you to the abundant water that so readily came out of the faucet. I got it. It broke me into tears.

Everything in life is a miracle. Every single thing, person, and event.

Gratitude heals.
Gratitude humbles.
Gratitude opens your eyes.

Happy Thanksgiving. And remember, you can start gratitude any time.

Creating The New World, Part 4 Abundance

Many people say they want to change the world. But how? What is your vision of the New World? In this fourth installment of the Creating The New World series, we tackle with the sensitive discussion of Abundance in spiritual context.

Alignment with Divine Abundance

In my Akashic Record Reading practice, I see quite many people who are well aligned with Divine Love, Light, and Truth, but are widely misaligned with Divine Abundance and Power. They know they are spiritual beings that transcend physical bodies (alignment with Divine Light) and they live in Love and Truth, but they have hard time exercising their power and creating abundant life. They limit themselves in receiving boundless abundance.

On the other hand, there are some clients who are well aligned with Divine Abundance but poorly aligned with other energy flows. They have money but they are unhappy.

And the truth is we don’t need to be one or the other way. It is entirely possible to align with all five energy flows, to live fully in this physical world while nurturing our spirituality.

The key is to free ourselves from the false beliefs in scarcity and limitation.

Beliefs in scarcity and limitation

Do you see the world to be abundant? Do you see boundless abundance you can enjoy?

Until you acknowledge abundance wholeheartedly, there is no way to receive it. It’s like asking for a candy when you don’t think there is one. Most likely, you wouldn’t even bother with the asking.

So the first step in creating the New World based on Abundance is to see through the lies of scarcity. Yeah, it’s just a system of lies. Just because many people have believed in them don’t make them true.

Here are some of such lies based on the belief on scarcity and limitation:

False belief #1 “There are only limited amount of wealth / success, so I need to compete for it.”
This is by far the most destructive false belief there is. It has lead to general sense of distrust and hate in other human beings, occasionally resulting in wars and crimes.

This belief can also manifest in reverse, “There are only limited amount of wealth / success, and I hate to compete, so I volunteer to lose.” It’s just the flip side of the same scarcity belief.

But is it true? Is there really limitation of wealth / success and are we destined to be either a selfish (and often play-dirty) dog or a poor self-sacrificing saint?

When your perspective is superficial, yes, you’d see limitations including limitations of the physical resources such as oil or land. However we don’t need oil for oil’s sake, what we really need is energy source to heat our houses and move our vehicles. Energy sources in the universe is huge it’s practically unlimited. We just need to figure out how to use them, which will create new businesses.

Similarly, when you look at your company’s profit & loss statement, you may think there is only a certain amount of money that can be shared among employees. Within that context, yes, there is limitation. However, your company’s profit can increase. Ignoring this fact and believing there is always scarcity and limitation is a short-circuited way of thinking.

I also think a lot of scarcity is man-made, spurred by the fear of scarcity itself. For example, there are starving people in Africa. Well, actually, we don’t need to look that far … right next to the US, people in Mexico typically have far less than Americans. And there are homeless people in the US. Why is this so? Is this because there is innate scarcity in the world?

I doubt it. I also see tons of foods going to trash right from the storefront in the US (because the produce is getting old, etc). If we can figure out how to share foods worldwide, most, if not all, the problems would disappear. And with today’s technology, figuring out a good way of distribution wouldn’t be difficult. The only thing that is blocking us is the fear of scarcity.

Creative solutions, sharing, and cooperation will make everyone well off.

False belief #2 “Life is short, so I better specialize in one niche I can be good at if I am to succeed.”

The physical time we have in one lifetime is somewhat limited. Our resources to learn and develop new skills, however, are not. A piece of knowledge or skill can be utilized in multiple ways, contributing to multiple areas of specialization. By cross training, we get better at all the related areas.

For instance, as a former professional foreign language teacher, I can say people who learns foreign language quickly and well are those who has mastered their first language well. Say you are an American who want to learn Japanese. English and Japanese are two completely different languages. Yet, when you come to the first Japanese class, you already have huge amount of knowledge and skills you can utilize in your attempt to learn Japanese.

You already know a word represents a concept. And you know many concepts such as “red” or “to swim”. You also know there are certain systematic rules to construct a meaningful sentence. Whether you know grammatical terms or not is irrelevant. The point is you know there are rules and you know you need to learn these rules, not just individual words. And you know much much more.

Someone who has learned to express their thoughts and emotions appropriately in their first language is highly likely to master a second language. And they are motivated to learn foreign languages — they like expressing themselves in words, which made them good at their first language to begin with. So there is no point in limiting them to one language. Their internal resources multi-function. Resources are abundant.

Similarly, many musicians juggle multiple instruments. Visual artists do this, too, and I think combination skill sports like ironman race is a very healthy development. A good salesperson can sell pretty much anything after a brief learning period, and they are likely to make good motivational speakers as well.

Further, you can jump beyond the naturally related fields. Tim Ferriss pointed out the benefits of this approach. (HT: Hunter Nuttall) “The jack of all trades maximizes his number of peak experiences in life and learns to enjoy the pursuit of excellence.”

We are born with natural curiosity that leads to multiple interests. Willingness to dive into new areas of interests is based on abundance thinking, and in tern reinforces abundance and confidence. And you can be wonderful in many areas.

False belief #3 “There are only certain amount of love, so I better hurry up and grab a desirable person as my lover.”

This is something I’ve been thinking hard recently. Again, the number of desirable single individuals are limited, but that is just the superficial aspect. There is no scarcity of love. I suspect this false belief has been promoted by social authorities because if we connected with many people with love across the board, that could be a serious threat to those few people in power who want to control us with fear. So they have been brain washing us, teaching us to stay in our tiny homes of security.

I will write more on this issue of scarcity and limitation of love. It’s a huge issue by itself and covering it properly is outside the scope of this article.

The above three beliefs are just the biggies. There are many other false beliefs that are based on scarcity and limitation. Scarcity thoughts puts you on deferred life plan, making you believe you don’t have enough — yet. Scarcity thoughts keeps your house cluttered by preventing you from getting rid of old and unnecessary stuffs.

What other false beliefs do you buy into?

The Female Principle

When we were hunter / gatherers, we operated on the female principles. Mother Nature provided our sustenance, and we cooperated in our work and shared what we received. As the society grew to more labor intensive agrarian (then industrial) system, male principle of separatism and competition became dominant.

The New World will once again embrace the female principle, but in a new way. In other words, we need to integrate the male and female principles and come up with the new principle that is very different from the current male principle.

Does this mean we will recreate the original utopia? No. It will be an updated version of utopia. This time, we will retain our individuality. In fact, we will be very conscious of our sense of self. At the same time, we will be clearly conscious of our connection to the Whole and our interconnectedness. This is what I mean it will be the integration of male and female energies.

Likewise, we may still compete in the New World. But the competition will be fun, like a good sport, not about rat race or exploitation. It will be about enhancing one another, and we will create wonderful results that we can all benefit from.

As individual, we each have both male and female energies regardless of the physical gender we have. As Ascension progresses, I see in many of my clients’ Akashic Records that their energies are starting to balance between the male and female energies. On the individual level, we are getting prepared for the new way of living.

How to bring in the New World

I’ve thought about how far I want to go in the action plan for bringing in the New World based on Abundance. The list can be quite detailed and elaborate, but I already wrote several posts in the Spiritual Money category and I don’t like repeating myself. So if you are interested in bringing in more abundance in your personal life, please check those articles. You may also enjoy posts in the Law of Attraction category.

Here is a skinny of the more “big picture” approach to the New World:

1. Work on your own abundance awareness before going out to help the needy. Check if you are buying into the false beliefs of scarcity and limitation and let them go. If you go out to help the “needy” before doing this, you may actually be reinforcing the social illusion, effectively keeping the poor where they are.

2. Spend time in nature. Many people find this is an effective way to cultivate the abundance awareness. Nature is always so abundant.

3. For your personal abundance, think of flow rather than specific amount of money. Wishing for, say a billion dollars, is usually a sign of scarcity thoughts.

4. Think of the New World of love and peace, where there are no borders. Borders and other various rules are enforced to keep the illusion of scarcity. Think in terms of Love, Light, and Truth rather than in terms of existing, conventional rules and regulations. How can you cooperate and share so we can all live in abundance?

What do you think of my vision of the New World? Please share your thoughts in the comment. Thank you. (Photo by carf)

My Spiritual Make Money Scheme

In What The Heaven Is Value?, I pointed out lack is an illusion.  If you want to make money, it’s critical you see this clearly.  So in this post, I am expanding on this concept, and I’ll use my own business as an example.  (It made $6K in January – not a super glamorous figure, but not too shabby for a nine month old one-person business, I guess) (Photo by shoebappa)

For those of you in a hurry (because people seem to be in a hurry when they talk about making money), here is the essence of the post:
The shortcut to abundance is to develop your spirituality so that you see abundance instead of lack.
If you get this, you are done.  If you didn’t quite get it, read on.

Lack is an illusion

In reality, things are just the way they are.  For example, it rains a lot in Oregon.  That is how Oregon weather is – it is not about lack of sunny days.  But in our thinking, we can make it about lack of sunny days if we so choose.  And make ourselves miserable doing so.  Or we can see abundance of rain water and make money. Like these people who make soaps with rain water, which is naturally soft water.

In that lengthy post about value and lightworkers / darkworkers, I described how the same world could be experienced either as the world of abundance and harmony or the world of lack and pain.  There was no real change between the two – in the latter, people just adopted the bad rumor of lack.

If things are just the way they are, you may argue, it is neither lack nor abundance, it’s neutral, isn’t it?  Good point.  However, things “are”, not “are not”.  Abundance exists, but lack does not – it’s the absence of abundance.  Just as darkness is the absence of light.  Thinking lack exists is an illusion.

“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”  — Swami Vivekananda

Likewise, we are putting our hands before our eyes and cry we don’t see abundance.

Lack of income?

In the comment section of that post, I conversed with Hunter Nuttall, who I so respect and adore:

Akemi: Really? You still see lack? Give me an example and I’ll incorporate it in my future post. (Be it YOUR lack, not like starving children in Africa. Because that is a different issue. You don’t really know about those kids.)
Hunter: Well yeah, I see lack. For one thing, I have no income. Isn’t that a pretty big lack?

I guess this may be the case for some other readers, too.  And yet more readers are afraid of the lack of income.  So let me make a point here to help you.

First, let me ask you if all your material needs are met with or without income.

After I quit my corporate job in October 2007 and until I started to make money in June 2008, I had no income source.  But I always had roof over my head and foods on the table.  I had a chance to talk with Hunter about this, and the conversation went something like this (quoted with his permission):

Akemi: So are you experiencing any material lack?
Hunter: Well, no.  Not now. . . But I’m afraid I will.
Akemi: How long is your money going to last?
Hunter: Umm . . . I don’t know.
Akemi: You don’t know?
Hunter: . . . No.
Akemi: Okay, then you have enough money.  If you are really short of money, you know exactly how long it will last.

Note about homelessness

People say they are afraid of becoming homeless.  Fear of homelessness keeps people stuck in their jobs they so loathe.  It’s such an effective control system that I wouldn’t be surprised if some exploitative managements were paying those people in the back.

However, I’m pretty sure people who are in alignment with the energy flow of Divine Abundance would not go homeless.  Homeless people are either:

1. Extremely out of alignment and stuck.  Like believing it is possible to become homeless and continuously acting with that fear.
2. Working on some spiritual lessons that can be best learned in homelessness.  For example, the soul may be choosing to experience abundance in an extreme rugs to riches scenario.

And here are three examples of people who rose from homelessness to abundance.

• Alex Smith, owner of Alara Wholefoods in UK, started his business with 2GBP, about $3, that he found in the gutter.
• Chris Gardner, owner of stockbrokerage firm Gardner Rich and who wrote his story in The Pursuit of Happyness that was later turned to a movie, was homeless with a toddler while he was interning.
• Neale Donald Walsch, well-known writer of Conversation with God series, was homeless for almost a year after his car accident.  Yeah, not just a homeless but a homeless with a neck collar.

I’m just listing these people to show the incredible possibilities.  But again, I don’t think we particularly need to become homeless to enjoy abundance.

Limiting thoughts about “income”

Next thing I want to ask to those of you who see lack of income is your idea of “income”.  Is that limited to certain ways, like paychecks or established business income?

Money is just energy and it can come in various ways – if you let it.  But paycheck mentality runs deep in many of us.  Even those who become self-employed carry over this mentality.

Are you comfortable receiving money in unexpected ways or do you want “income source” that seems solid, like employment?  Does it bother you if someone just sent you money, like as donation?  Does it bother if you just picked up a $100 bill?

I’m not saying you should rely on these haphazard incomes.  I’m saying you might want to open up to all kinds of possibilities of income, all kinds of income sources.  So you always have income possibilities – as long as you don’t refuse it by believing you have lack of income.

Seeing abundance everywhere you go

To make money, you first need to see abundance.  You can’t create abundance out of lack – I mean your stubborn belief of lack.  It looks like this:

Dark grim outlook of lack: “There are no good business ideas, people don’t have money and they are not buying anything, and I don’t have any money or connection or expertise to do anything, maybe I’m not interested anyway . . .”

Gee, I just felt really awful.  Let’s get back to abundance consciousness, quick!

. . . okay, I think my vision is restored.  I see abundance now.  I see lots of people, with lots of dreams and desires, and therefore tons of opportunities to serve these people.  Energy is flowing, and all I need to do is to get in this flow.

Do you see it, too?  Look around and say out loud what you see abundantly, whether they are visible stuffs or invisible needs / wants / etc.

When you notice “lack”, take a moment and think if you can change your viewpoint to see abundance.  For instance, you see lots of people losing their jobs?  Means there are lots of people who will benefit with support services in their job search or businesses development.  Think you live in a small town where there isn’t enough market for your business?  Can you go online?  The population is exploding globally, you know.

Share abundance to get more abundance

One excellent way I know to tap into increasing abundance is to share the abundance.  Come up with a win-win game plan that make everyone better off – that will attract more people and money.

I just started promoting my new eBook by affiliate program.  Affiliate programs are easy way to share abundance.  My affiliates make money by promoting great products that improve customers’ lives, I make money, too, and customers are happy to easily find such great products.

Do you know other win-win game plans?  I’d be interested – let me know in the comment ; )

How I started my business

I had a pretty good job as executive admin before.  My motivation to go into business myself was more about the sense of service and increasing love and freedom for all, including myself.  In other words, releasing the light energy trapped in darkness.

I knew there were many many people who would benefit from my Akashic Record Reading service because I was one of them myself.  I had struggled many years trying to make sense of my life, always felt as if there were invisible walls around me.  So I saw abundance of potential customers – all I do is to reach out.  And by doing this, my lifelong experiences, many of which were troubling at the time, become my assets – another abundance.

I also write for this blog.  This is a free access blog and I hardly make money with it right now, but I enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts, so I do it.  I have abundant resources within me.  And I sense there may be yet another abundance that I may be able to tap in by doing this.  I’ll see.

Okay, enough about me.  Here is another person working to release light from darkness, or “eliminate the chain and changing the fucking world”, in her own way.  While making good money herself (reportedly $200K last year)  And yes . . . a lightworker can use bad words – be quite good at it, for that matter ^_^

Do you see abundance now?  And with that empowered vision, what are you going to do?  If you are not doing what you aspire to do, what is stopping you?

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