Receiving and Offering Thanks-giving

Filled to the brim with all that we have received from life, WE can finally overflow into true thanks-giving.

Gratefulness comes from experiencing the GREAT FULLNESS of life. In order to know great fullness, we need to possess the fundamental capacity to receive.

When we are receptive, we are able to be filled up and nourished. We are aware of the gifts of each day, the earth, our relationships, and our miraculous bodies…no matter the conditions of the moment. We are open to notice and absorb all that is available to us, and is streaming toward us, at all times. This is one of the ways we describe Grateful Living.

We often miss the critical importance of first being able to receive the gifts that sustain us whenever we consider reciprocity, gratefulness, and generosity. Receptivity is the basis for life. Inspiration is oxygen flowing into the lungs. Only then can we exhale. Blood flows into and out from the heart. Life and love offer themselves to us. We take in sustenance fully, and only then can we be grateful and generous…

So, let us cultivate and give thanks for the capacity to receive. Let us look through eyes that seek to be enriched by what we see, hearts that seek to be cracked open by love, and souls that seek to know the preciousness of our belonging. Let us slow down enough to truly notice all that is presenting itself to us as blessing.

When we acknowledge and share our blessings in the world, we are able to have an experience of overflowing sufficiency. “Enough” spills over into grace, abundance, generosity, and kindness. And filled to the brim with all that we have received from life, WE can finally overflow into true thanks-giving.

You may also be interested in this article by Kristi, Gratefulness and the Power of Radical Sufficiency.

Kristi Nelson

Kristi Nelson is Executive Director of A Network for Grateful Living and the author of Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted. Her life’s work in the non-profit sector has focused on leading, inspiring, and strengthening organizations committed to progressive social and spiritual change. Being a long-time stage IV cancer survivor moves her every day to support others in living and loving with great fullness of heart. Learn more about Kristi here.

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