July 17, 1955 Walt Disney started Disneyland in California so families could escape the outside world and enjoy themselves. Main Street USA, blends into fantasy, adventure, the future, and the past. Escape into the imagination and expect lots of fun. Disneyland has lots of character, entertainment is everywhere, and happiness abounds. Leave your troubles at home for a train ride, a boat ride, a space ride or just a leisurely stroll. Enjoy ice cream and popcorn, while a parade passes or fireworks light up the sky. Don’t blink, or you might miss Tinkerbell. Disneyland, Walt Disney’s gift to us all.
Flash forward to 2011. Now imagine a place to experience lifetime changes as you empower yourself toward becoming a happier human being. Because isn’t that what we all seek. To be happy, avoid pain, and live a long and meaningful life. Well, there is such a place. With amazing things to take your breath away! And it’s called Gratitude World.
Gratitude World is a place to experience the state of being awake to and appreciative of the good things that are around us, moment to moment. It will be built around an idea that will appeal to people’s sense of fantasy and wonder that cannot be easily experienced in everyday life. It is a world which allows you to be your true self and surround yourself with like-minded people who are also seeking their true happiness. Because the truth is that most of us are surrounded by blessings, great and small, all the time. But it’s so easy to forget, especially in today’s world with foreclosures, job losses, and higher costs for food and gas. What we have to do is practice gratitude in order to cultivate this state of wakeful remembrance.
Gratitude World consists of various experiences that allow our mind to open up our grateful hearts.
At Gratitude Fields, learn to appreciate the people and things we often take for granted. Take, for instance, water: Think of all the ways that water touches and nourishes your life. Imagine a world without it. Imagine even a day without it. And yet, do we really appreciate water? And think of all the people you encounter and how many of those people are doing something that benefits you in some way. Imagine how you would feel if you consciously acknowledged them. Because life moves so quickly, that sometimes we forget to say thank you or even forget to be thankful at all.
At My Grateful Body, we will discover ways to cherish our body and take care of ourselves. In fact, if we feel good about ourselves we tend to look after our physical selves better. We make better food choices and enjoy making our bodies healthier.
So, today I am grateful to have the vision of Gratitude World and the commitment to follow my dreams. And I owe it to living a life of gratitude. Of course, being grateful is not simply something that we ‘should’ do. Gratitude is a virtue that cannot be imposed from the outside or through a sense of obligation or guilt or shame. It can only be cultivated from inside of our own heart’s experience. When we employ gratitude with our own heart’s consent, it becomes a gentle and powerful means that we can use to help us appreciate the world in which we live. Just imagine how our world would be if each of us were able to live from a place of gratitude. Because when we live from this place of abundance and fullness, we not only experience the amazing Grace in our lives, we become the source of Grace in the lives of countless others.
When I think about the daunting task of creating something, I’m reminded of one of my favorite movie lines from Field of Dreams –”If you build it, they will come.”
And so I will.
