Day 142 – The Gratitude Festival in Lake Worth, Florida

The Gratitude Festival – An afternoon of love, laughter, and fun that will leave you in a state of Gratitude & Joy! This is what is written in the program and without a doubt, this is the truth. It is about being fully in the moment and trusting yourself that you are about to experience something truly amazing. As I entered the Lake Worth Playhouse, I noticed this table of wonderful gratitude products for sale. This helped build more excitement in the air, as I grabbed my ticket, and found my seat inside the theater.  Let the show begin!

Jo Englesson, the creative force behind the Gratitude Festival, takes the stage. Encouraging the audience to give it all you have,  Jo tells us ” And know that we’re always, no matter where we are in life, exactly where we need to be”.

The music begins, as Amy Steinberg sings the song “Exactly”. Amy uses irreverent humor and crafty intelligence to promote tolerance, openness, and diversity using her original music and poetry. Her musical themes encompass power, faith, sexuality, acceptance and love. She was incredible!

Velvet Lenore and her unbelievable talented dance troupe performing.

Pablo Malco, director, choreographer,  and dancer. Absorbed in passion and exuding love, Pablo’s cool dance moves and stories about life make has a lasting effect on you. Pablo says “The most important thing to understand is to be ourselves. We appreciative people more when they are being their absolute self and not trying to be what they think, we think they should be.

“I personally have this problem, I have always tried to please people. It’s a problem because people are very ungrateful. So, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives. Purpose. You have to work on you first. You have to feel that feel before you can bring it to somebody else’s life – happiness, fulfillment and be a partner, and not a parasite”.

The GRATITUDE KIDS

hELLEN & shOPRAH – A new duo with the only aim to have you laugh and enjoy yourself. But with a clear message: Our experiences are based on our interpretations, so we basically bring our experiences from the past into the now. However, we have the choice to choose how we see it. And if you can capture some of those moments, it’s very easy to shift into something else.  You can actually view how you want to be and you can do it in an instant. 

Jessica Hollen, was on stage performing Live Painting on Stage throughout the show. Owner of Haute Finishes and Founder of the Goddness Initiative, Jessica is integrating her experience, passion, and vision to promote the platform that BEING WOMAN IS AN ART FORM.

But the highlight of the show, for me, and for many others was the Act III: Surprise! When the audience came back from the break, they were asked to form a line and one by one, waited to do the “Gratitude Walk”. Blessed to be a part of the show, I was dressed in white, as I became an Angel. Each person was asked to close their eyes, as they walked through our tunnel, to allow for trust and receiving. It was an amazing experience as we whispered words of unconditionally love, while sharing these gifts and witnessing the strong, emotional feelings that were felt.

It was a powerful connection that will stay forever in my life.

Jo also left us with some powerful golden nuggets to use as she said:

“One, clean, clear out the junk. The first thing that you get to do in your life is literally take a good look at yourself and start doing some serious housecleaning. We all carry a lot of stuff with us and a lot of it is not serving us and it’s not serving the world. So, like get real, and do whatever it is to clear out the junk whether you go to a therapist, take the train, go some silent retreat, I don’t care. Frig-gin figure it out and have it out!

The second thing is to really take a stand of responsibility in your life. If it’s to be it’s up to me. I create everything and whatever I say, that’s how it is. And I mean like crossover everything, even the bad stuff. And then really accept what you created, accept everything that you have and it’s not in alignment with what you want, okay, look at that and start creating something different. It’s simple. A lot of us tend to sit and go, God, I don’t have any money in my bank account. I don’t have any money in my bank account! I mean how long are you going to sit and talk about that.

Be in gratitude no matter what and however that looks. Literally, what gratitude does is when you’re in gratitude, it brings you to the moment. It brings you to now. Because you can’t be grateful and not be present. Gratitude is a great tool to get you to be present. So, how do we do that.

There are some principles that I live by, and number one is, everybody gets to win. What it be like, if no matter what, with your kids and your family, you always make sure that everyone is winning. Cause I’m telling you, you might think your winning but you’re not. It doesn’t work that way.

The other thing is there isn’t enough.  So, we live in an abundant universe, I mean there’s always enough. And some reason we believed this scarcity that how do we get this, how do we get that, it’s not enough, it’s not enough. I mean our mother started producing milk,  before we were even here. Like that’s how abundant this universe is. So, if we really get that, all things are going to come, to you and through you.

And then the third principle is that love always conquers fear. And what I like to do is, whenever I find myself in a state of fear, where I want to react to something or act up, I ask myself what would love do. Like literally, if I put love back out, how can I handle the situation. And it kinda brings me right back, and I snap out of it.

The fourth thing is just practice gratitude until you become gratitude. So gratitude for a lot of us in the beginning can be something that we do. Gratitude journal, prayers, like I have a bracelet that says gratitude. So once you kinda do that it starts forming into a being. Where you just know your grateful,  like you don’t even think that your grateful getting into bed knowing that you have a warm bed. You don’t think about it anymore, your grateful for it.

So, those are the principles and steps that I go by, that literally make me feel like a million dollars. And what’s the payoff. The payoff is a total abundant life in a state of joy. Go out there and practice and be it. And let go of your crap! A lot of us are running old tapes, over and over and over again. I did, for many, many years. And at some point, enough is enough it’s time think really hard for your life. So, get I get a commitment from you guys that you’re not going to hold back anymore, that your willing to go out there and go, I’m not going to hold back anymore!” (APPLAUSE)

I can totally resonate with what Jo was saying as I had the opportunity to further open up my mind to all the possibilities that life can offer by attending a 9 day transformation Gratitude Training course last August in Lake Worth. Created by Jo, the training  involved extremely powerful and emotional draining exercises to let go of deep, long-held, hurt feelings, to stop playing the victim, be accountable for your actions and start to break down the ego wall.

I learned that persistence, faith, and vision, do not work if you don’t have a clear intention. When you feel you are ready to do whatever it takes, you are ready to start the action process. Because who we are and what we do is based on past beliefs, so let go of the past and live in the present.  Trust who you are and what you are doing, and others will recognize this.

But the best part was experiencing a moment to share the love bottled inside me with great big hugs! What an amazing feeling, to give and receive unconditional love for another person. What a wonderful world it would be if we could open up and share the love and gratitude we already have. It was at that point, that I declared that I AM now a loving, powerful, free man, ready to show up in the world as  – Dave, The Gratitude Guy.

Attending this Gratitude Festival was the most amazing, exhilarating, empowering experience I ever had. Being able to explore Who I Am and aligning myself with that. I feel, more than ever, that I walked away with a full heart and am motivated to create what I want in my life. Because when you live with a grateful heart, you are able to see both sides of a situation, good or bad, and can better understand its true meaning.

Thank you Jo for showing up on this planet and being the empowering self that is you. You inspire so many people by your words, but more so by your actions. And I am truly grateful to be cognizant of the ways that you have affected my gratitude journey. And I wish to say a special thank you to my team from Gratitude Training last year whom I was so happy to see again – Samantha, Chris (My Buddy), Michelle, Carol and Jim, Chris, Andrea Michelle, Francine, Sheree, and

John and Karen.

For more information about Jo Englesson and the Gratitude Festival, the Gratitude Training, and so much more, please visit: http://www.tofa.us

Here’s to the next Gratitude Festival!