Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Gratitude and Excitement
To deliberately raise and hold an elevated emotional state by alternating gratitude for the present with excited anticipation of the future — making the elevated state your daily default.
Gratitude + excitement in 5 lines: Each day, name specific things you’re grateful for — small ones count — and actually feel the appreciation. Then turn to the future and generate genuine excited anticipation for what’s coming. Hold the balance of present gratitude and forward excitement. Make it a daily rhythm so the elevated state becomes your default. Re-run it anytime you slip into worry.
What it is
In the “Gratitude And Excitement” teaching of A Manual For Manifesting Your Dream Life, Eric John Campbell pairs two emotions into one daily rhythm.
Gratitude anchors you in the present — appreciating what already is, even small things — which he says “raises your vibrational frequency” and aligns you with your desires. Excitement leans into the future — feeling eager anticipation for what’s coming.
Campbell explicitly wants a balance of the two: “perceiving life as a rhythm of appreciating your current state while fostering a sense of eager expectation for future possibilities.” Where the “Tune to the Frequency” practice generates the specific feeling of a desire, this one is the broad daily state-conditioning that keeps your baseline emotional tone elevated.
The Method
Faithful to Campbell’s instructions:
- Open with gratitude — concretely. Bring to mind specific people, events, and things that “evoke a sense of thankfulness and happiness in you.” Campbell stresses including the small and ordinary, not just the big wins — “gratitude, even for seemingly small things, raises your vibrational frequency.”
- Let it be felt, not listed. Don’t just name items mentally. Actually feel the appreciation in the body. The emotion is the point; the list is only the doorway.
- Shift into excitement. Turn toward your dream life and your future aspirations and deliberately generate eager anticipation — the felt buzz of “this is coming / good things are on the way.” Excitement is gratitude pointed forward.
- Hold the balance, daily. Campbell frames this as a rhythm, not a one-off: “make gratitude a part of your everyday life,” balancing valuing the here-and-now with looking forward with excitement. Run it every day so the elevated state becomes your default frequency rather than a mood you visit.
- Use it to re-tune when you slip. Whenever you notice you’ve dropped into worry, lack, or flatness, return to a quick round — name one thing you’re grateful for, then one thing you’re excited about — to lift back up. (Sourcing note: the gratitude-plus-excitement pairing, “rhythm of appreciating your current state while fostering eager expectation,” “gratitude even for small things raises your frequency,” and the daily-habit framing are Campbell’s, from the cited chapter and essay. Step structure is faithful paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
From Campbell’s primary text (2020) and his Substack essays. Gratitude as a frequency-raiser and “abundance magnet” is standard contemporary New Thought (Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, Abraham-Hicks, Wallace Wattles’ “grateful mind” in The Science of Getting Rich).
The “excitement / eager anticipation” beat aligns with Abraham-Hicks’ emotional-guidance emphasis on reaching for better-feeling thoughts. Independently, gratitude journaling is a flagship positive-psychology intervention (Emmons & McCullough; Seligman’s “Three Good Things”).
The Traditions' versions
Positive psychology — gratitude journaling / “Three Good Things” — the evidence-based cousin; nightly recording of things appreciated. Strong support.
- Wattles — the grateful mind — The Science of Getting Rich makes gratitude central to “getting rich.”
- Abraham-Hicks — reaching for the better-feeling thought — deliberately climbing the emotional scale; Campbell’s excitement beat fits here.
- Ignatian Examen / devotional thanksgiving — daily structured gratitude in religious contexts.
- Savoring practices — anticipatory savoring (excitement) and present savoring (gratitude) are studied wellbeing techniques.
Common refinements
Listing without feeling. Rote “I’m grateful for X, Y, Z” with no emotion does little. Let each one actually land.
- Only big-ticket gratitude. Campbell’s point: the small things count and are always available. Don’t wait for something impressive.
- Excitement without grounding. Pure future-hype can become escapism. Keep it balanced with present gratitude, as Campbell insists.
- Forced positivity over real pain. Gratitude should not paper over grief, anger, or genuine problems. Feel those too; gratitude complements, not denies.
- Doing it once. It’s a daily rhythm that conditions a baseline, not an occasional pick-me-up.