The Magic of Appreciation

Short essay on the art and magic of appreciation. Being able to appreciate everything and everyone around you is really magical.

By Lynn Grabhorn
Author of Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting

There are only three states of being we run around in all day long. If we could be even a little more aware of which one we're wearing during each moment of the day, we'd have a big leg up to changing our vibrations.

Victim Mode
This is the oh-dear-they're-doing-it-to-me-again-and-there's-nothing-I-can-do-about-it frame of mind where we go nowhere but around in negative circles, forever magnetizing the same old same old.

Flat-Lining Mode
In the Flat-Lining Mode, we're neither down nor up, just bumping along on second-rate gas. We're not flowing our energy to anything, and surely not attracting anything. In Flat-Lining we're not only living the results of our own erratic flowing of energy, but that of everybody elses. (Like attracts likes, remember?) Very unpleasant! And what most of us do most of the time.

Turned On Mode
Now you're up! You're on! Your high frequencies are no longer attracting the negative vibes of others. You're fueled with the pure positive energy of well-being, vibrating in harmony with your Expanded Self, flowing positive energy out and pulling positive events in while being wrapped in unsurpassed safety and security.

Victim Mode, Flat-Lining, or Turned On, we will always find ourselves in one of the three. Our goal, of course, is to make it the Turned On Mode as often and as long as we can, which is why we look to the high, high energy of appreciation.

The vibration of appreciation is the most profoundly important frequency we can hold, for it is the closest thing to cosmic love that exists. When we're appreciating, we're in perfect vibrational harmony with our Source energy, or God energy -- call it what you will.

You can jump-start it, or you can jam straight to the feeling, it makes no difference. What's important to know is that one minute of flowing the intense energy of appreciation overrides thousands of hours spent in Victim or Flat-Lining Modes.

But take care! No fair just thinking appreciation. That won't wash. Thinking is out, feeling is in. You can't just make a decision that you're going to appreciate something and let it go at that. There has to be that surge of significant emotion flowing up from the depths of your being for this to work.

But neither does that mean you have to have just been saved from a life-threatening incident by 911 rescue workers to feel deep appreciation. In fact, flowing appreciation is really no big deal. You can flow it intensely to a street sign if you want. Don't laugh, I do that all the time to stay in shape. Like any skill, flowing energy requires constant practice, and there's something so absurdly satisfying about flowing buckets of love, adoration, and appreciation to "SLOW: MEN AT WORK." I flow it to stoplights, billboards, birds overhead, a tree stump, a dead animal, a winter storm, and of course, to people.

Sometimes in the supermarket, I'll pick the meanest looking low-life I can find and just open up and douse the unsuspecting soul with the highest vibration I can muster. Maybe it's appreciation, maybe it's honest-to-God love. One time I did that to a scroungy old biddy who looked like she'd rather eat me than let me pass. I blasted her, and in that very moment she wheeled around, searching angrily for whatever she felt hit her, while I smiled back in pure innocence.

That's my "Hug-A-Bum" game where I envision me and a perfect stranger on the street (or wherever) rushing into each other's arms like we were old best friends who hadn't seen each other for ages. You start with acceptable "targets," like someone you wouldn't mind sitting next to at a lunch counter if you had to. Then you move up, bit by bit, to targets that are increasingly difficult for you socially, until finally it doesn't make any difference what kind of slobs they are.

You just see -- and deeply feel -- the two of you joyfully recognizing each other and flying together in this gigantic bear hug as profound love surges between you. I don't know how many people I've done that with while walking down a street, and watched them turn around to look for whatever it was they felt.

The vibration of appreciation is also the highest, fastest vibration we can use for attraction. If we would shoot appreciation at anything and everything . . . all day long . . . we'd be guaranteed to have heaven on earth in no time, living happily ever after with more friends, more money, more beautiful relationships, in total safety, and closer to the God of our Being than it's possible to fathom.

Reprinted from Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings by Lynn Grabhorn. Copyright © 2000 Lynn Grabhorn. Published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company. March 2003; $16.95US; 978-1-57174-381-7.

About the author: Lynn Grabhorn was a long-time student of the way in which thought and feelings format our lives. Raised in Short Hills, New Jersey, she began her working life in the advertising field in New York City, founded and ran an audio-visual educational publishing company in Los Angeles, and owned and ran a mortgage brokerage firm in Washington State.

Lynn's books, which also include The Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting Playbook and Beyond the Twelve Steps, have received high acclaim from all corners of the world. Her last book was Dear God! What's Happening to Us?

Lynn passed away in 2004 at her home in Olympia, Washington. We all miss her.

For more information, please visit www.lynngrabhorn.com

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