Adopting this Simple Practice will Change your Mind and your Life

Healing anxiety and depression with the shortest prayer on earth

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” — Meister Eckhart

That opening quote from German Saint, Meister Eckhart, is quite a claim on the side of gratitude. For a Dominican monk in the 13th century, those are strong words indeed. The middle ages are often referred to as the dark ages, and for good reason.

Eckhart, like so many mystics of the middle-ages, was accused of heresy and condemned by the Franciscan-led Inquisition. Yet, for him, thank you was the prayer above all others.

Why do you think that was so?

What is a prayer? To me, a prayer is something that helps us meet our needs with a higher understanding, especially if we’re suffering or confused. When I pray, I’m admitting that I need help and I’m willing to ask for it. There’s an element of surrender in that. Surrender means letting go, and one of the quickest, most authentic ways to let go of something is to release it to the Divine.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that when I pray, I’m petitioning the highest, deepest, most expansive aspect of my own intelligence to take over and figure things out, because my fearful, confused, egoic self with it’s limited ideas can’t seem to get a handle on things.

My ego is too constricted to know what to do. But my soul is multidimensional in it’s seeing, it’s knowing, and it’s response to my problem.

I see acts of prayer as petitions for the healing of my own mind with all of its contrived perspectives, so that I can finally see things clearly from my heart and soul, as well as my mind.

I am a student of A Course in Miracles, a form of spiritual psychotherapy, which suggests that all healing, first and foremost takes place in the mind.

If this sounds nutty to you, then please just humor me and hang with me for a moment. We’ll get back to gratitude and the shortest prayer on earth in just a minute. I promise.

The “Course” indicates that all healing is ultimately about a shift in perception in which we free ourselves from a sense of separation ruled by fear to an ever-present reality of oneness ruled by love. What are Saints like Meister Eckhart always trying to teach us about from beyond the grave? Love. It’s always been love. And for most Saints, their demonstration of love has been so radical because of who their Teacher was.

So I study and work with A Course in Miracles and I listen to great saints — both Eastern and Western — because it’s the straightest path to authentic love I’ve come across. Because I’m a human with a heart, I figure I’m here to learn to love.

I’m also an energy healer, and that has shifted the way I view things. I’ve learned that we tend to perceive life according to the energy vibrations and frequencies we are aligned with. People commonly refer to this as mindset. I call it energy alignment. We can have an entirely different experience of life when we raise the vibration of our energy field, thus expanding our perception of reality.

Today’s quantum physics stands on the shoulders of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which taught us that everything — absolutely everything is energy. That means everything from the food you eat, to the chair you’re sitting in, the electricity in your home, the thoughts you think, and the way you feel, vibrates to a particular energetic frequency. Each energy frequency has the capacity to produce certain affects. Healing can be such an affect as can illness.

Here’s where gratitude as a healing agent comes in.

Think of the last time you felt really, really grateful for something. Consider how relieved and how glad you were for whatever it was that you were feeling thankful for.

Now don’t go thinking of your new Maserati, that’s not the kind of grateful I’m talking about. Go more with the time somebody really saved your ass. Like the time someone showed up with the rent, or the electric bill when you were too sick to work. Or the friend that forgave you when you didn’t feel you deserved it… you know the kind of genuine I’m looking for here.

Bring to mind that deep, humbling sense of gratitude from your experience….

Now how would you rate that feeling on a scale of 1–10? 1 being a very low heavy, depressive feeling, and 10 being joy.

There are few energy signatures higher on the scale of frequency than gratitude. The key is for the feeling invoked to be sincere.

You see what I did there? I told you we’d circle back around to gratitude.

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is how quickly being grateful for something (anything!!) can lift my spirits and my out-look on life from one that is meaningless, constricted, hopeless and alone, to one that is hopeful, open, purposeful and “on-course” with my greater good.

Further, I don’t need any special tools to be grateful. I simply need to look around me or search my mind for something to be sincerely thankful for. This makes it one of the most accessible methods available for raising my energetic vibration, my mood, and my point of view.

When my eldest son, Tristan, was in high school, he was suffering from anxiety, so I gave him a journal and invited him to join me in my own practice of gratitude journaling. Each night upon crawling into our beds, we’d grab our journals and a pen and we’d each practice being thankful for whatever came to mind that night. It was a tremendous support, and my son’s anxiety became less debilitating.

Over time, his anxious mind began to relax in new ways and he even began to study A Course in Miracles (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975), which has transformed his experience of life entirely. Several months after starting his gratitude journal, Tristan decided to build a school project around the impacts that a gratitude practice might have on people’s lives.

He designed a study in which he sent out journals to 7 different people, varying in age from 18 to 72. Participants were asked to journal 5 things they were grateful for each night before going to bed. He surveyed them three times throughout the course of the study, using number ratings 1–10 on various positive emotions and mental outlooks. The experiment was performed for three months and by the end of it, the average increase in positive emotions and outlook on life was 70%.

Everyone’s data expressed very clear benefits from their daily practice of gratitude. One participant, a woman in her sixties, confessed that she had just lost her younger brother and was still grieving his death. She felt that the gratitude journal had uplifted her state of mind, acting as a supportive healing agent through the crisis of her loss.

Gratitude is akin to love. In fact, it can only be felt when love is present, and likewise can also induce the presence of love whenever we are deeply thankful for something. Gratitude vibrates to a very high frequency in the great vast cosmos of energy signatures. Sister frequencies of gratitude are energies like appreciation, compassion, joy and inspiration.

It may seem too simple a solution to remedy states of emotional grayness, depression or grief, to just write 5 reflections a night, but great truths are often sheer simplicity cloaked in complicated story-lines.

Keeping a gratitude journal is truly simple. No complex methods or rituals, just a journal or notebook to write in and a pen. That’s all, along with your willingness to discover at least 5 things that you can be genuinely thankful for, even if it’s just the pillow beneath your head. Believe it or not, being grateful for your pillow will work wonders. It doesn’t matter what you’re thankful for. It just matters that you’re thankful.

How to start your Gratitude Journal Practice:

Keep a journal or notebook and a pen next to your bed. At night when you climb into bed, open your journal and write down 3 to 5 things you are grateful for. This may involve a reflection upon things that occurred that day, but may also be more generalized, such as being grateful for the roof over your head. Keep it simple and don’t complicate your statements or your list.

For example:

1. I am so grateful for this warm bed.

2. I am so thankful for the warmth I feel right now. I feel safe.

3. I am so grateful for this home.

4. Thank you for the intimate conversation I had with Elsa today.

5. I am so grateful for her friendship. Thank you…. thank you for her.

OR another list might look like:

1. I am so thankful for the great dinner we had tonight.

2. I am so grateful for the garden and that we have such wonderful and nourishing food.

3. I am so grateful for my job, for all that it provides.

4. Thank you God for listening to me all the time. I am so grateful for you being you.

5. I am so thankful for my family and friends, that they help me learn how to love.

The important thing is that your journal statements have real meaning for you. Nobody else needs to read them. Your list is your own. It’s a tool to support you in your own state of harmony and well-being within yourself.

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