You may have heard about the miracle berry, which is an amazing little red berry found in West Africa that causes sour foods, like citrus fruit or hot sauce, to taste sweet. One woman who tried the miracle berry wrote, “Sinking my teeth into the lemon, I braced myself to wince at the sour, citric tang that would inevitably assault my taste buds. But, almost unbelievably, there was not a hint of bitterness. The acidic fruit tasted as sweet as lemon meringue pie. The sensation was surreal, as if I were sampling the result of some worrying genetic modification. Yet it was 100 percent natural, the incredible effect of the ‘miracle berry’.” 1
In a way, gratitude is like the miracle berry. When we fill our hearts and minds with gratitude, it changes the way we experience things, and sour experiences can even seem sweet to us.
As author Melody Beattie wrote, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Let’s try to make this month a month when we stay on the lookout for things we can be grateful for. After reading the articles in this issue of Activated, I’m betting we’ll see good results.
- “The ‘miracle berry’ that turns taste on its head: I tried it and it works,” by Liz Todd, 7 June 2008, Daily Mail ↑