Ungrateful Buffalo

Don’t have time to re-read the post? Let me sum up.

* The human brain, left unchecked, runs on autopilot – which is basically as effective as letting wild buffalo drive your life wagon.
* Hooking your wagon to a team of well-broken horses is much safer, more effective, and more likely to get you to your desired destination in one piece.

A few years I read Change Your Brain Change Your Life by Dr. Daniel Amen. It was the first time I’d become conscious of the power of my untamed thoughts. About this same time a media phenomenon called “The Secret” entered the scene. The Secret is a documentary and book project coordinated by Rhonda Byrne which basically put into modern packaging age-old teachings about the power of thought. For example:

A run-away brain needs to be broken and trained just like a wild horse. This requires time, patience, and PRACTICE. (Some thick padding in your backseat is also helpful.)

One of the most useful tools I’ve found to reign in my run-away thoughts is the practice of gratitude. Gratitude is powerful.

When I feel grateful for the time I have, I find that I have more time.
When I feel grateful for a stroke of good luck that has come my way, I inevitably run into more good luck.
When I feel grateful that I am who I am, that I am enough, that I have enough and I can be enough, I find miraculously that I receive more, I’m able to do more, and I can be more. Whenever I practice gratitude, it’s like the universe reveals an untapped reservoir of goodness that it’s been saving especially for me.

Now, when I say, “practice gratitude,” I mean really PRACTICE.

I hated the piano lesson when my teacher passed off my favorite song and moved me on to a new, foreign piece of music to learn. I would put off opening the music for days and continue to play my old favorite over and over again. The “practicing” stage felt awkward and uncomfortable. I plunked through choppy notes that felt like a foreign language and sounded nothing like music. Little by little, with practice, the notes would begin to fit more comfortably under my fingers until they became a part of me. Over time, I could play the music from my soul like it was a natural part of me and not foreign chords plunked from a page of sheet music.

Practicing gratitude doesn’t feel natural at first. It can feel forced, insincere, even fake. Any mastered skill feels awkward at first. No NBA star was able to make a flawless, smooth, and beautifully executed slam dunk when they started. They looked like a tangled flurry of teenage legs and arms flopping uncoordinated in multiple directions, until, with practice, they found their rhythm.