Question about gratitude affirmations

[Sir Neil]

I have a question about gratitude affirmations which I am a bit confused by.

I understand how giving thanks for what you already have attracts more of the same thing…..but what if you want that particular thing to change and improve?

For instance, what if you have outgrown your job and want to change it? Or a relationship has reached the end of the road? Or you need a bigger home?

Wouldn’t giving thanks for what you already have just keep attracting more of the same? Wouldn’t the Universe just think “ oh, they’re happy and grateful with what they have, I’ll just keep giving them more of that? “

Or does gratitude actually bring about changes and improvements? If so, how does it do this?

Thank you for your replies.

[PinkFlower]

Greetings, Sir Neil. Your question certainly piques interest. Reflecting on my journey with gratitude affirmations, I recall utilizing them during my quest to relocate a few years back. Initially, I crafted a list of affirmations that truly spoke to me. Subsequently, each day during my commute, I would recite five things I was thankful for—four present blessings and one aspiration, affirmed as though it were already fulfilled. Concurrently, I acted upon inspiration, such as actively searching for a new residence. After several months, my efforts bore fruit. To me, perseverance was crucial, coupled with trust and the ability to release control. I hope my contribution will help you on your journey. :)

[Miss Hepburn]

This is how I see it....your joy, your great attitude, seeing everything in the now and future as 'going your way' ...the
Universe or God is responding and providing what you desire...if you don't doubt or block it in some way...meaning focusing
on lack or any negativity.
Hope that helps.

The mind likes to complicate things...it really is pretty simple.

Say, I'm grateful for my business...but, deep down I'd really like to close up shop......WELL, look ----
all the electricity on the street is down for the day...what do you know...I can go fishing, after all!!!!
You can start to watch the 'Dove-tailing'....joints, like a cog, all fitting together...unfolding in your life.
(I'm not making this up from books...this is my personal experience since Jan 2006.)

Made up story.

[Miss Hepburn]

This is how I see it....your joy, your great attitude, seeing everything in the now and future as 'going your way' ...the
Universe or God is responding and providing what you desire...if you don't doubt or block it in some way...meaning focusing
on lack or any negativity.
Hope that helps.

The mind likes to complicate things...it really is pretty simple.

Say, I'm grateful for my business...but, deep down I'd really like to close up shop......WELL, look ----
all the electricity on the street is down for the day...what do you know...I can go fishing, after all!!!! Just an example.

You can start to watch the 'Dove-tailing'....joints, like a cog, all fitting together...unfolding in your life.
(I'm not making this up from books...this is my personal experience since Jan 2006.)

[Wandering_Star]

Originally Posted by Sir Neil

Wouldn’t giving thanks for what you already have just keep attracting more of the same? Wouldn’t the Universe just think “ oh, they’re happy and grateful with what they have, I’ll just keep giving them more of that? “

There is no Univere/God separate from you, that decides whether you're deserving or not, and bestows or withholds anything based upon whether you thank it, or ask for it correctly.

You are a divine avatar, a facet of the Universe/God/All-That-Is, focused into this dense material reality, in order to experience the game of Limitation. And the biggest limitation is forgetting that you chose to play the game in the first place, (and that it is just a game).

There is no one keeping anything from you but yourself. And there is no one who can give you anything but yourself. You are ultimately the source of everything you want.

So the question becomes, why are you withholding what you want from yourself? And what kinds of beliefs are you holding on to in order to keep what you want from showing up?

Or does gratitude actually bring about changes and improvements? If so, how does it do this?

Maybe it's time to shift terminology. The concept of cultivating gratitude works for a lot of people—up to a point. Most people who get into the Law of Attraction do so when they're at a low point in their lives, and their vibration is stuck at a low frequency. Looking for things to be thankful for, recognizing abundance they've already received, and expressing gratitude for it, can help raise their frequency high enough to let them start having some success with manifestation.

But over and over again, I see people with a solid gratitude practice hit the wall when it comes to manifestation. They get some good things; they feel better; but the big stuff eludes them.

And I think that's when "gratitude," which was once a help when someone was at a liw point, has become a liability.

The word itself has its limitations. It's too deeply associated with the idea that one is offering thanks to someone outside of, beyond, and probably superior to themselves, for giving them something they either could not have got for themselves, or might have had to struggle for. It puts one in the position of expectant petitioner and (hopefully) grateful recipient, but in between, there's a lot of room for doubt. And it locates the source of what you want outside of yourself, and therefore you're ultimately powerless over whether you get it or not.

So I'd like to offer an alternative, and maybe it will help: Instead of practicing gratitude for what you've already got, try simply loving it and taking pride and satisfaction in it, instead. Look at it, not as a gift the Universe was kind enough to give you because you wanted and asked for it in the right way, but as something you created for yourself, or attracted into your experience. And if you wanted that thing and brought it into your life without doubts or struggle, well, why can't you use that same power on anything else?

That Abe Hicks thing about how it's as easy to manifest a castle as a button really is true. If you can be as delighted and proud when you think about how you manifested a relatively small, "easy" item as you imagine you would be after manifesting a big thing you want—and bring that same emotion into a vision of yourself already having the big thing, it's pretty amazing what you can make happen.

[Sir Neil]

Sorry everyone, I appreciate your answers but I still don’t really understand this. It still seems like gratitude just gives you more of the same (even if it’s positive). But what I’m wondering about is how gratitude for -what is then attracts DIFFERENT AND BETTER things. For example:

How does gratitude for your current job (which you have outgrown) then attract a different and better job?

How does gratitude for your current home (which may not suit your needs any longer) attract a different and better one?

How does gratitude for your current car (which keeps breaking down and being unreliable) then attract a different and better one?

How does gratitude for your current relationship (which has just degenerated into stagnation and arguments) then attract a different and better one?

Rather than just ‘trapping you’ in your current circumstances (which you would be better off moving on from).

Hope this makes sense.

[OldChap]

Originally Posted by Sir Neil

It still seems like gratitude just gives you more of the same (even if it’s positive). But what I’m wondering about is how gratitude for -what is then attracts DIFFERENT AND BETTER things.

Here is a slightly different perspective about gratitude and positive affirmations:

To be able to do what we came here to do, the ego mind serves the purpose of keeping us out of danger and to stay alive in this very unfamiliar and low consciousness hostile part of reality by instilling in us fear, worry, envy, selfishness, hoarding, separation, hierarchy, conquering, and supremacy.

It is why some call the ego mind the survival mind or the mind of lack that often pushes us to make very harmful and even malicious choices that causes us to have doubt, regret, unease, and restlessness in heart and mind.

Having gratitude is the first step for us to return to greater peace and joy, and to then have greater love and compassion for oneself and for others.

Gratitude moves us away from the strong destructive and harmful influence of the ego. It makes us make better and more efficient use of what we have, and hence be less wasteful. All contributing to greater harmony and alignment with this beautiful living conscious Planet we call Earth that is working in partnership with our consciousness.

Gratitude doesn't hinder our creative expansion to do greater things. In fact it will allow us to take on the challenges with far more passion, benevolence, and joy. And what we do out of passion, benevolence, and joy will be done a lot better and with greater compassionate than by out of hoarding, hierarchy, and supremacy in mind.

As for positive affirmation, it is great. It brings hope and encouragement to a dire situation or to benevolently influence the outcome of a situation. It is proof of how powerful our consciousness is, especially when we are in harmony and alignment with love, this beautiful planet, the universe, Creative Source, or what some call God.

Gratitude and positive affirmation are not opposing energies, rather they both work together to help us to have more love, compassion, benevolence, and joy that is our true nature. As oppose to our false nature that is the ego which shuns love, compassion, and benevolence for survival.

It must be noted that positive affirmation is not a one way street, expecting the Universe to bring us what we want while we sit back and wait. It is a two way street and we need to do our part while the Universe does its part.

The further we move along the spiritual path to love, the more we will begin to see everything from a benevolent perspective, bringing us greater joy and peace in heart and mind from having the wisdom to understand what we truly are, why we are here, and why things are unfolding the way they are.

Then we will complain less, blame less, and judge others less. It is us beginning to return to Oneness with the Universe, Creative Source, our Soul, our Higher Self (higher vibrating self), or just the much much bigger part of us that is not in the human form here.

Oneness with everything. Because multi-dimensional quantum energies are all intertwined, connected, and entangled.

And interestingly, parts of the sacred human body are multi-dimensional quantum energy receivers and transmitters.

[Wandering_Star]

I already wrote a long answer to you, which you either didn't read, or read, but didn't understand because you didn't read it carefully enough. Go back and read it again, carefully this time, and think about what I said.

You're coming from a place of needing to be given what you want by asking "the Universe" for it—you're a supplicant, not a creator, holding out your begging bowl and hoping the Universe will toss something you want into it if you ask in the right way. And as long as you're coming from that position, you'll keep getting more of the same results.

There is no Universe outside of yourself; you are it, and it is you. The potential for everything and anything exists within the Universe, so by extension it exists within you.

So everything you have, including everything that you don't like, and find inadequate, and struggle to be happy with? You've created all of it. Every last bit of it. You've manifested it. And since you can only attract what you're in vibrational alignment with, your dissatisfaction with what you have, and seeming inability to manifest better, is showing you where you're at vibrationally.

Gratitude for what one already has is a useful tool to shift one's vibration upward from a low point to a much higher one. But yes, there's a plateau, where it stops working in the way it did before and starts to feel like stagnation, and congratulations, you're at that point.

I've already suggested changing the language you use, and trying a less-loaded term. But I also recommend continuing to love and appreciate what you have, even if it's currently hard or inadequate or unwanted, because it's giving you information about where you're at, and what you need to change if you want something else. It's showing you where you are getting in your own way, and how you are blocking your own ability to create.

What you no longer want is also helping you refine your desires and identify more precisely what you do want, and how you want to feel. Most people are really fuzzy on this; they never stop to get clear on their desires or go deep into the feeling of already having them. They don't experience the vibration of being in the place they want to be, and can't imagine it already existing right now, and bring themselves into alignment with it so it can manifest.

So when you look at something you don't like, or are tired of, thank it for being there and look at what its presence in your life is trying to tell you. Shift from being grateful for what's already in your experience to gratitude for the better thing that is waiting to come into your experience, and be grateful for the old, tired, unwanted things for showing you what you need to change in order to bring that new, wanted experience in.

[Sir Neil]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Star

I already wrote a long answer to you, which you either didn't read, or read, but didn't understand because you didn't read it carefully enough. Go back and read it again, carefully this time, and think about what I said.

Wandering Star, thank you for your two very detailed replies. I apologise if I come across as obtuse; I tend to overthink things and get confused. I think I am getting this now: gratitude for the present increases your vibration so that you feel better in the now and attract better.


I’ll tell you what’s going on in my life now. I have been working in the same job for a few years, and though I have enjoyed it and regarded it as positive, it has started to go downhill over the past few months. I am not angry about this though, because I sense that it is a juncture the Universe, Inner Self etc is creating in order to move me on to better things. A case of “ I had to make you uncomfortable, otherwise you wouldn’t have moved. “


I have had this experience before, and these junctures tend to happen in leap years (as if my life moves in cycles) so I kind of know what’s going on here. I was thinking that if I gave thanks for the now, it would just keep on creating what I have in the now. But it seems to me that it’s better to give thanks for past, present and future. The journey so far and everything I’ve experienced; the juncture of the present and the opportunities it gives; and my new beginning of the future, and the guidance required to get there.

[Traveler]

I'm by all means no expert but gratitude keeps your vibration up. Then when you want something new, you try to visualize yourself in that new state. Feeling the excitement, the gratitude of that new something, appreciating having it.