There is much to be grateful for. Waking up alive is one. Waking up alive next to somebody lovely is another. Waking up alive next to somebody lovely, surrounded by birdsong and reflections of shimmering water on my ceiling is a third.

“Get out own town! That sounds too good to be true!” I hear you saying. My mindread of course. You mightn’t be saying any such thing. That’s precisely what I did. I got out of town.

Now settled in beautiful Ballina – the picturesque nothern NSW coastal town of milk and honey, where smiling faces of passers by greet you and the bath tempered water is graced by sharks with their own free will.

This place is bliss! Or is it?

If it’s bliss for me it might be hell for others. Let’s flip the coin.

“Ballina – the home of retirees in caravans, where one can’t get a moment to oneself without shallow greetings, and the ocean is infested with life threatening beasts.”

Sounds to me like gratitude is in the attitude. I’d like to quote someone here, but I’m not sure where I picked up this wisdom.

A place is just a place. It is our attitude to the place that carries whether it is bleek or beautiful.

“A place can’t be bleek” my darling partner Glenn said to me the other week, coming to an understanding of an old meaning he had given his hometown of Nambucca Heads, which in my mind’s eye is a gorgeous seaside paradise. And as he explained to me then what now makes perfect sense, that a place can’t be ANYTHING, except for what we make it to be, I too had a penny drop moment.

A place is just a place. It just IS. Until we dress it in words of description and other meaningful garnish. It doesn’t mean anything. It only means something to US. We create the meaning about the place.

“I grew up here and had a pretty awful time, so now this place is a dump” some might say, meaningfully.

“My mother loved to holiday here, and I miss her so much. It means a lot to me to come here” says another. What a contrast. And these two might be talking about the same place!

I make meaning into matter a lot of the time. Sometimes so much I give away my personal power in the process.

“I really wanted this job and felt I was meant to have it, but didn’t get it so it must mean something bad. It must mean I’m rubbish at what I do!”

And then come the feelings of self doubt as I make gigantic meaning into gigantic matter, and off I roll, snowballing down in an avalange of my own mind’s creation.

Wow. I’m powerful.

I tend to manifest things pretty accurately as I go about life. Something I wished for came true. More than once. More than twice. Most of the time this happens in total oblivion. I read an old journal entry worded “I really want to… “ and as I read it, it’s already happened, more or less like I wanted it to.

I got served.

Perhaps it’s for the best this magic happens unknowingly. If I knew what superpowers I possessed I’d be sure to need a larger bicycle helmet.

Since I have occasional awareness of my manifesting superpowers, I’d like to use my powers for good, and spread love and joy as I go along. And what brings on feelings of love and joy for me, starts with gratitude. The more gratitude I feel, the more love and joy radiates from within me, and more often than not attracts MORE feelings of gratitude. Like a wheel of good fortune.

As some may relate to, I don’t feel grateful all the time.

How can I? If the opposite of gratitude didn’t exist, how would I know to feel gratitude?

Everything has a polarity. Love / Hate. Yes / No. Gratitude / Resentment.

How can I have one without the other?

The trick for me personally is to be okay with occasional resentment. With absolutely no judgement attached to that. A step back into awareness that they are each other’s polar opposites, and one isn’t without the other. And that’s okay.

I’m human.

Perfectly imperfect.

And oh so grateful for that.

Some of this article’s content is inspired by an Apex Attention Practice birthed by The Coaching Room.

Photo credit: Chakramindset

Carmen is participating on our current 21 days of Gratitude project, and has offered wonderful gifts of her Element5 Perfume, natural perfumes from pure essential oils, to cater for health conscious lovers of perfume.

Check out her website, www.element5perfume.com and register now  to participate in the online event which runs from 1st to 21st September.