In America, we have just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday. Each year, it serves as a reminder of how the early pilgrim settlers wanted to celebrate by giving thanks for their very survival in a strange, new land.

Today, we face, not a new land, but a new consciousness. Everyone in the world is a pioneer - an early pilgrim – stepping into a New Reality.

The bounty that is ours today is not food for survival, but food for our spiritual hearts, as we have entered a new world where heart-centered consciousness is coming clearly into focus.

The love that springs from heart-centered consciousness is the saving grace of all of humanity. It is the source of compassion. It is the energy of caring for others. It is the binding force which holds together the entire universe, and it flows through you whenever you simply allow it.

Love is the gateway to spiritual consciousness.

Giving thanks from the heart is an expression of gratitude, and gratitude is an expression of love which has enormous power. It is invoked when you mentally send love to those whom you appreciate. It becomes especially powerful when you send your gratitude to your concept of God the Creator for all the good things in your life and for life itself, because God will reciprocate with uplifting energies. That one step you take towards God really does bring a reaction of two steps towards you.

When you allow your heart to open to the universe’s flow of love, gratitude comes with that flow. Gratitude for the people that you love, and for those who share your life. Gratitude for the Creation of the beautiful Earth as our home in this great cosmos. Gratitude for the Sun that gives us life. Gratitude for being alive, for just existing, for being in the flow of the wonder of life.

Gratitude flows unimpeded from an open heart. When you allow it, gratitude will flow as freely as the sunshine, unobstructed by judgments or conditions.

Use the following affirmation from my latest book, Spirituality Made Simple, and see what happens. The more you use it, the better it works. Try it now:

I am grateful for life
And all that I love
I am grateful for the Earth
And the Sun up above
I am grateful for my spirit
And my inner being
For the One that I express
And the joy of this feeling