Gratitude: A Gateway to Transformation

by Erika Flint, BCH, OB on November 25, 2025

Neuroscience

4:40

As Thanksgiving approaches, I've been reflecting on why gratitude is so powerful in transformation work. In my practice, I've watched it shift clients' nervous systems in real time.

Years ago, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks: gratitude is the closest feeling to God. I wondered about that. Why gratitude? Why not love?

Then something became clear. For those who resonate with the concept of God or Source or Universal Love - however you understand it - God is love, and gratitude sits right beside it, as an action.

It's purposely directing your attention and focus onto that which you appreciate and are grateful for in your life. The act of being grateful fills you with the feeling of being love itself. In that moment while you are thankful, you enter a receptive mode of expansiveness and possibility.

"Be grateful. I once heard that gratitude is the closest feeling to God. I've often wondered about that. Why gratitude? Why not love? Because God IS love, and the next closest thing, is gratitude. It's an action: purposefully thinking of things to be grateful for. The act of being grateful fills you with the feeling of BEING LOVE. For in that moment while you are thankful you are in a receptive mode of expansiveness and possibility."

- From Can You Be A Hypnotist?

The Hypnotic Power of Gratitude

When we work with clients in hypnosis, we're helping them transform by accessing their subconscious mind - the part that holds patterns, beliefs, and emotional responses. Gratitude creates a unique neurological state that makes transformation easier.

Here's what happens in your brain when you practice genuine gratitude:

Your nervous system shifts. Gratitude activates the parasympathetic nervous system - your rest, digest, and heal mode. This is the same state we cultivate in hypnosis. When you're in this receptive state, your subconscious mind becomes more open to positive suggestion and change.

You interrupt negative patterns. The subconscious mind struggles to hold two opposing feelings at once. When you're genuinely grateful, anxiety, anger, and feeling stuck tend to fade. Gratitude then becomes a pattern interrupt - a way to shift out of unwanted emotional states.

You create new neural pathways. Each time you practice gratitude, you strengthen the neural networks associated with positivity, possibility, and resourcefulness. You're literally rewiring your brain for transformation.

Gratitude as a Daily Practice

In my work with clients, I've noticed something powerful: those who maintain a regular gratitude practice experience faster, more lasting results. Gratitude creates the internal conditions where change becomes natural.

One client recently shared that she's been celebrating awareness - simply noticing moments of change and being grateful for them. She said everything felt easier because she was thanking herself for noticing rather than criticizing herself for imperfection.

This is the hypnotic power of gratitude in action.

Your Thanksgiving Week Practice

This week, I invite you to try something:

Each morning, before you get out of bed, think of three specific things you're grateful for. Rather than a generalized gratitude, the key here is specific moments, people, or experiences that genuinely move you.

Notice what happens in your body as you do this. Notice the softening, the opening, and the shift in how you feel.

Then, as you move through your day - especially through challenging moments - pause and find something to appreciate right in that moment. Even if it's simply gratitude for your ability to notice you want something different.

Gratitude doesn't ask you to ignore what's difficult or pretend everything is fine. We're not bypassing here. We're purposefully creating the internal state where you can actually address what needs to change.

The Gateway Opens

Gratitude opens a gateway to becoming the person you want to be. It creates spaciousness where there was constriction, and invites possibility where there was only limitation.

As you gather with loved ones this Thanksgiving, remember: you're activating one of the most powerful transformation tools available to you.

You're opening the gateway to transformation (and may not even realize it!).

Happy Thanksgiving.