Are You Ungrateful?

What you experience on the outside, you’ve created on the inside.

Are you ungrateful?

Gratitude is something that I, not uniquely, have an ongoing relationship with. One morning, I can open my eyes to my stunning apartment with high ceilings, beautiful trees (inside), my skylight, and right out the back door onto my deck in the coolest neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

The next morning, I can wake up in a prison. In my dirty apartment that is so hard to keep clean, catch a view of that ugly couch we never replaced, and right out the back door to another grey day in a city I never meant to stay in this long.

Some days, I have “literally zero friends, no social life, never go anywhere, and never get to buy myself anything nice.” And other days, I need to schedule a dinner two weeks out because I have social events planned every night, tons of commitments, and attend in my third pair of brand new boots this winter.

(Remember growing up, when you got ONE new pair of winter boots? And you were SO excited to pick them out!)

I know you can relate. Both experiences are real. There’s plenty of evidence to support and prove that both are my reality. So what’s the deal? Am I getting kidnapped every couple of weeks and plopped down in a parallel universe?

…Yes.

The experience you have of life comes from within. Your inner world is your universe. In fact, your inner universe dictates what you see and experience in your outer world.

In other words, what you experience on the outside, you’ve created on the inside.

In the happy scenario, your universe is operating from gratitude.

In your other scenario, your universe is operating from lack.

When you’re operating from gratitude, you fully experience the life you want to live. When you operate from lack, you experience what you don’t want to live.

Am I suggesting that simply having gratitude is enough to create exactly the life you want to have?

Yes and no.

Simply having and practicing gratitude are not enough. Instead, you need to BE grateful.

Watch to see what I mean:

Are you on a journey to lose weight or improve your health? Are you doing it by being nasty and critical of yourself?

That’s not grateful. Remember — what you experience on the inside, you create on the outside.