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