Daily Inspiration 2-14-15

"Appreciation is the absence 

of everything that feels bad

and the presence 

of everything that feels good." 

-- Abraham, Esther Hicks 

I never thought Valentine's Day meant anything when I was a kid. We were encouraged to hand out these silly little "Be My Valentine" cards, and I didn't even know what that was all about. All I knew is that it was 'expected' every February 14th, and if you didn't participate, ridicule may be in my future. So, I played the game and gave them out, but there really wasn't any emotion or meaning behind that effort.

After reviewing the history of Valentine's Day, and the various ways that is celebrated around the world, it reminds me of how something starts out a certain way and then people change it, rearrange it, and it morphs into something else.

I'm generally a romantic kind of guy as I grew up in the '50s watching all those romantic movies made in the '30s and '40s, so as I became more involved with attractive partners, I paid much more attention to Valentine's Day. It wasn't just to comply with what was expected, and would be glaring in my absence of fulfilling a duty, but was to me an excuse, as if I needed one, to be romantic, or much more effectively expressed, as a great reason to shower appreciation on one I loved.

Although I do think that any excuse is a grand excuse to shower appreciation, I have learned to expand on that to the point that I am in a state of appreciation every single day of my life now--not all day long, but every single day, I find things and people to appreciate, and I have Abraham and Esther Hicks to thank for that delightful, and empowering change:

"Appreciation is the vibration of alignment with who-you-are. It is the absence of resistance. It is the absence of doubt and fear. It is the absence of self-denial or hatred toward others. Appreciation is the absence of everything that feels bad and the presence of everything that feels good. 

Being in a state of appreciation is seeing whatever you are looking at through the eyes of Source. And when you are in that state of appreciation, you could walk down a crowded street with all kinds of things that a lot of other people would find reason to criticize or worry about, and you would not have access to them because your vibration of appreciation is picking out for you things of a different vibrational nature. 

A state of appreciation is a state of Godliness. A state of appreciation is being who-you-really-are. 

The vibration of true love, that feeling of being in love, that feeling that you have sometimes when you see someone and you feel like you are moving through one another. The feeling that you have when you are looking at the innocence of a child and feeling the beauty and power of that child. Love and appreciation are identical vibrations." 

Don't forget in your appreciation of another to remember to appreciate yourself.

Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Appreciation Day. Happy Love Day. Happy Day. Happy. 

Spread Some Joy Today--because joy, appreciation, love is all the same vibration.