My video (posted on drewrozell.com) on the distinction between gratitude and appreciation has gotten me lots of feedback. (Thank you.)
Some now see the distinction clearly, some seem to disagree with the general sentiment being that there’s value in looking back from where you have come.
I’ve learned that only fools debate over the Internet, yet I find this distinction so important, that I am compelled to write more here.
The real game in consciously choosing and creating your life is to practice becoming super-sensitive to how the thoughts you are choosing make you feel. In fact, you need to care more about how you feel than the truth.
Putting how you feel above the truth represents a complete paradigm shift for most people. It’s radical. It’s a leap not everyone wishes to take.
My job as a coach is to give people feedback on their thought processes. I’ve done this work with hundreds and hundreds of people. For the vast majority of people — no matter how spiritually evolved or “awake” that yourself to be — you are still in the habit of choosing thoughts that do not feel good. This is a powerful habit because we are trained to focus on “the truth” (and no one really sees themselves as clearly as they think they do).
In other words, in the course of our lives we have experiences and events, struggles and growth. From these, you form a narrative of your life, a story to fit those experiences and facts. However, the law of attraction is really simple and clear. The thoughts you choose — whether they are “true” or not — will determine what you create going forward in your life. Each thought has an energy underneath it. Again, your work is to become less interested in “the truth” and more interested in how the thought you are offering feels.
Briefly, if I start to think thoughts of gratitude around my health, I immediately activate the story I’ve constructed from my personal experiences. Very quickly, I start to think about my mother’s long decay from Alzheimer’s disease. I start to think thoughts like, I’m glad I’m healthy. Right underneath that thought, comes I hope I do not get Alzheimer’s. I cannot stop these thoughts. They are just what gets activate for me when thinking about gratitude and health.
Certainly, that second thought, while true, does not feel good. I’ve had doctors and family members suggest that I get tested for the presence gene they believe will determine my fate. But I reject that perspective completely. I believe that the thoughts I choose and the feelings I project are the only thing that determines what I create in my life. In short, my life is all up to me. My health, my wealth, my relationships… all of it simply reflects my thoughts and energy.
If you do not resonate with the law of attraction you likely have another way of seeing the world. What I propose will likely seem radical or foolish and we can simply agree to disagree. However, if you go through life with the understanding that the thoughts you choose will determine everything that shows up in your life, you’ll want to delve deeper and really sensitize yourself to the thoughts you choose. In fact, this is your real work in this lifetime, your true responsibility.
So, if there’s some aspect of your life that you wish to upgrade, the fastest, easiest way to do that is to disconnect yourself with the “reality” of your past experiences. Quite simply, you cannot tell the stories from your past that do not feel good to tell and create something radically different. It defies law.
Because of this, I rarely talk about my mother’s experience outside of using it as an example. While it’s certainly true that the experience made me grow and evolve as a person, it’s also true that thinking about that experience does not feel good. When I first began this practice, the little voice in my head, the little guy running the GUILT department of my brain, tried to coerce me into feeling bad about divorcing myself from the story. Yet because I believe in the power of my thoughts, continuing to tell a story that does not feel good — not matter how true it might be — or choosing to dwell in feelings of guilt are simply not options.
Instead, I choose to place my attention on thoughts that feel better. An easy way to do that is to turn my attention to appreciation. I can easily come up with a list of things I appreciate about my health. I can also easily come up with many aspects of my mom that I appreciate. (Just typing sentence gets good feelings flowing through my body.)
If you still find yourself bristling at the distinction between gratitude and appreciation, I would suggest that you not THINK about the difference between the words, but allow yourself 5 minutes of your life to sit quietly and FEEL the difference that the respective thoughts activating by appreciation and gratitiude evoke. Let this be your guide.
Finally, this came in my e-mail today (what timing!)… there is no better source, in my opinion…
When you feel gratitude, often you are looking at a difficulty that you have overcome, but there is still some of that “struggle” vibration present. The state of appreciation is seeing whatever you are looking at through the eyes of Source. . . You could walk down a crowded street with all kinds of things that a lot of other people would find reason to criticize or worry about, and you would not have access to them because your vibration of appreciation is picking out for you things of a different vibrational nature.
— Abraham
Excerpted from the book “Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth and Happiness” #271
awesome! this needs to be published.
this distinction seems so simple to understand. i get it. and still…your article makes me think more deeply into the topic. for example..the radical responsibility of it all.
thanks!
thanks Jenn… this one was a bit of a rambler… I just sat down and that’s what came out… never sure if it makes any sense, so I appreciate the feedback.
but the radical responsibility part is huge… it’s the real key…
that’s the radical idea.
that is all up to you…
not economies. not governments. not genetics, drug companies, or doctors…
the cool thing is that all the science backs this up…
but not everyone is ready to take that leap…
warmest,
d
Hey Drew!
GREAT article!…and you got me thinking…
Why not do some EFT around the distress that is still present for you around your mother’s end-of-life experience–or with anything else that is still distressing for you when you are feeling grateful? That way, you can share your Mom’s story without any bad feelings and by clearing your energy field of constrictions you will enhance your already powerful manifestation energy!
I’m sure Karin could help you with that : )
Lots of Love,
Sondra Rose
Abundance Coach and EFT Practitioner
Hi Drew,
I like where you’re coming from on this. I’m going to try and make the distinction between feeling gratitude and appreciation in my own life. I can already see how we use different words in creating our thoughts….”I’m grateful for my good health” having the underlying thought of what the other side of that would entail. (“Boy, it could be a whole lot worse!”) Whereas, ” I really appreciate how good I feel right now” has that present, in the moment, good vibration, that isn’t connecting to negative thoughts.
As you may recall, I also have a Mom who died with Alzheimers. I recently watched a PBS series, that featured a high school teacher of mine and her husband, who also was diagnosed with a form of AD, (was relatively young when diagnosed, and got to a point where he had no language at all). The program was very intelligent, but had that underlying “scary” element of how many people will be dealing with this disease, as our population grows older, and the doomsday scenario they present where there will not be enough places to even house folks that are afflicted.
I really don’t even associate my Mom with the disease much, except as a reason for death, which seems important for us humans to know. I’ve never been asked to take a test to see if I have some gene present that would indicate a pre-disposition to the disease. I always find it amazing that women will actually have radical mastectomies, simply due to the fact that breast cancer has been present in some relative, and some doctor has found some gene that indicates it could be an issue for them. Just seems so incredibly alarmist.
And after experiencing another October of “Breast Cancer Awareness” month, where everything from batteries to football players seems to have a pink ribbon on it, I think of how much just introducing breast cancer into our consciousness proliferates the actual disease. Since we are all creators of our own reality, how many women (and men) manifest cancer due to some marketing campaign that keeps bringing our focus back to cancer….getting cancer…dying of cancer…suffering with cancer….”beating” cancer!” If there were really a “cure” for cancer, what would that do to our medical society, cancer centers, pharmaceuticals, doctors, radiologists, etc. Cancer is big business. This sounds a little like a conspiracy theory, but what if the people behind Breast Cancer Awareness, are the folks that are making a handsome living off of so many people dealing with cancer? And they have figured out that the more awareness they bring to a subject, the more focus is placed on it, the more cases of cancer will spontaneously be diagnosed. Interesting how they came out with new standards of diagnosis after the whole month of “awareness” was finished to say that self exams and even mammograms are not recommended now until after the age of 50. Radical!
Anyway, I must close. Thanks for your comments, and your continued search for the very cool life. I’m a follower.
With Love,
Debbie