Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance. – Eckhart Tolle

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. – Helen Keller

Every day we say thousands of automatic thank-yous without even realizing it. Someone holds the door for us, our waiter brings us our food, our partner does the dishes after dinner, and the list goes on. But how often do we remember to say a conscious thank you to what’s working out for us, to the abundance of gifts already in our lives, and to what still remains a mystery. It’s important to remember to be thankful for all we have, for the people in our lives that we love, and for simply being alive. It can be easy to miss all the wonderful things that are already here when we’re only focusing on what comes next. That’s why it is so important to stop and take a minute to say our thank-yous.

In order to say this kind of thank you we need to create some time apart from our normal routines and our habitual ways of thinking and being. It’s time set aside to acknowledge what’s in our lives and honor its presence. This thankfulness has its roots in the interconnectedness of all the life that surrounds us. It’s about being thankful not just for what’s easily recognizable and the usual suspects, but also the illusive or hard to see and what we’ve taken for granted.

Saying a genuine thank you reconnects us with the parts of ourselves that tend to slip away as we rush through our days. All the subtle thoughts have a chance to settle and be seen when we take a little time for some inner reflection and gratitude. This is when we step out of normal time and enter into sacred time. The kind of time when there is no agenda, no pretense, no comparisons, no quotas. This kind of time has the power to heal us in ways we don’t understand and helps soothe jangled nerves, discontent, and irritation. A deeper gratitude takes hold and changes us when we quiet down and offer our sincere appreciation.

Ceremony is simply a way of being grateful out loud. And that’s what this kind of thank you really is, a small, sacred ceremony. We can be thankful in a myriad of different ways for the things that are lovely and wonderful as well as the bumpy times we’ve managed to navigate. It’s a way of giving something of ourselves back. Every morning I take some time to honor it all and say my heartfelt thank you to the universe and an intelligence greater than me. Taking this time for our soul to be in communion with what completes or confounds us is really the beginning of owning our truth, our lives, and what we’re learning from everything that’s swirling around us.

Whether it’s long and thoughtful or short and sweet, saying our thank-yous lets us enter the present tense of our lives and live more from this center. Making room for our genuine offerings is really another way of letting the healing of being thankful work its magic. A simple thank you can help us start the day with wonder and delight at all the little things that move us, help us see more clearly, and live in grace and gratitude. There is less taking for granted and more awareness of what often gets overlooked in our hectic lives.

Say thank you for all that you are, all that you’re becoming, and everything that’s holding your world together.

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