By now you have likely heard the importance of practicing gratitude in your every day experience as a way to improve your life, boost your mood and ultimately re-shape your way of thinking. The Dalai Lama promotes compassion and gratitude as do several motivational authors, most notably Louise Hay.
So how does this gratitude thing work? Now, being a therapist, I understand the neuro-bio-mechanics of neuro-receptors, neurotransmitters and all that, but I want to propose an extension to that understanding, from an energetic perspective. The science behind gratitude is important, but it is one piece of a very intricate puzzle and it isn’t an explanation that is accessible to everyone, particularly if you are experientially oriented.
Okay. You practice gratitude, which means you are focusing in the present moment on the various aspects of your life that you feel grateful for. You either write or type out your gratitude thoughts, or perhaps just review them in your mind. You experience 
thankfulness, you think of how great your life is because of those parts of your world, your heart opens, you feel lighter, maybe excited even. The sensations of warmth and lightness fill your heart, soul and body and radiates out into the world around you. At the same time, your neuro-bio-mechanical process is in full force, bathing your brain in wonderful neurotransmitters that enable those sensations in your body to happen. If you have become fairly good at experiencing gratitude this might be a common state that is easy to get to. Fantastic, keep practicing!! If you haven’t had this experience yet, keep going with it, it will happen as you practice.
What you might not be aware of, is the impact this gratitude experience has on your energy frequency. The gratitude experience allows your body, heart and mind to come into alignment. When that happens you remove any barriers for your personal energy to flow through your being. I can hear the energy skeptics saying something about blocks of energy in your body, or past, or whatever, but those become irrelevant, in my opinion, when everything lines up in a gratitude experience. The reason being, the focus on the present moment. This is the key. If you are conscious in the present with your gratitude, your body and your heart, the barriers are non-existent because you are not focusing on them.
As we know at the quantum level, “where attention goes, energy flows”. In your existence in that moment of alignment your attention is not focused on barriers, therefore they don’t exist in the present moment. (Again, I know there are rebuttals to this but please spare me the negative energy, I can’t explain it all in one post) This is the magic that is alignment. This is why gratitude is such a great practice.
When our being is in alignment, energy flows freely through us, which means we can increase our capacity to feel, activate, and utilize the unlimited energy available to us. (Feel free to read up on quantum physics for more details.) Therefore, we can experience a process called “up-levelling”. Up-Levelling, in my understanding is when the increase in our capacity to work with 
our energy in conjunction with the energy of the universe, increases. Our body experiences the sensation of lightness because it in effect is more light; it is more energy than matter in these moments of gratitude. The more we can get to a place of being more energy than matter, we increase all the amazing things we want to experience or draw into our life. Why? Because every single thing in existence is made up of the same stuff. Everything is energy!
The goal, is to become capable of being more energy than matter so we can live more harmoniously, more naturally, and recognize that we are essentially one with everything because we are all made of the same stuff. The catch, is the density of the energy of our selves and the things we want to bring into our life. We are dense beings (pun intended). But “non-living” objects are more dense, if that makes you feel better (however, the reality is those objects are also “living” just not by our limited understanding). If you want certain things in your life, you have to create an energetic resonance with those things so it becomes a natural fit with your energy frequency. You become the same vibrating energy as what you want so it can easily come to you. Resonance creates magnetism where like, attracts like, and presto! “Magically” you receive what you have been wanting or needing.
The bottom line, is that gratitude practice allows us to “up-level”; opening up our ability to become light, to be more energy than matter, which enables us to be more of, and have access to, creating more of the great things that we want to be, and do, and have. 
By coming into alignment through gratitude we also come into alignment with the higher frequencies of energy that our desires are already vibrating at. That is why activities that make us feel better are more desirable, they are vibrating at a higher energy level. When we are tired, or lethargic our energy is more dense leading us to engage in activities at that lower, more dense frequency which do not tend to be good for us. Practicing gratitude in those difficult, dense times, allows us to move up to a higher vibration to return to the experiences that contribute to living harmoniously and naturally as greater energy beings.
So, if you’ve been feeling a little dense lately (more matter than energy, that is), grab a pen and paper, or open up a new document and begin listing all the things you are grateful for in this moment. It will raise your frequency and support your energetic alignment, bringing you to a higher frequency and closer to creating the amazing life that is possible for you!
Thanks for reading! You’re on my gratitude list today!
