Gratitude: the link to Mindfulness

We discussed that mindfulness is becoming open and aware. In one of those paradoxes that often confront us, I found one author who said that his insight is that the prerequisite to practicing gratitude is openness. "You have to be open to receive." How do you shy away from receiving gifts, or opening up and being vulnerable? In order to practice gratitude, you have to open yourself to the gifts that come your way: the offer of help, the compliment, the hug. You may have to become aware of how you are blocking those gifts before you can be grateful for them.

Conversely, "gratefulness is full awareness," where, in that moment "you are fully one with the whole." So the work we continue to do about being aware and open in the exercises of breathing and listening, for example, help us enter into the practice of gratitude, while the practice of gratitude deepens our awareness, and requires our openness.