Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
It Is Wonderful
To meet life with joyous, expectant wonder and thanksgiving as a settled state that opens awareness to grace already present.
Drop the running tally of lack.
- Look at what is already given — recognize, don’t manufacture.
- Respond with genuine wonder: it is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful.
- Overflow into uncountable thanksgiving for what is.
- Hold it expectantly through the day, without watching for proof.
What it is
This is Walter C. Lanyon‘s signature state-practice, named for his book It Is Wonderful: meeting life — and especially the recognition of the indwelling Presence — with a posture of joyous, expectant wonder and overflowing thanksgiving.
It is less an affirmation to repeat than a feeling-tone to inhabit. Lanyon’s refrain, “It is wonderful, it is wonderful, it is wonderful,” is the spontaneous response of a consciousness that has glimpsed its own divine reality, and he couples it with uncountable gratitude — “ Blessings, blessings, blessings, so many you cannot count them.” The wonder is not worked up at lack; it is the natural overflow of recognized abundance, and for Lanyon that very state is what opens awareness to the grace already present.
It works through feeling as the operative force (The Inner Creates the Outer), through where attention rests (All Is One), and through wonder as the response of one who finds they already are what they sought (All Is One).
The Method
A faithful rendering of Lanyon’s practice:
- Drop the deficit story. Begin by releasing the running tally of what is missing or wrong. Lanyon’s wonder cannot coexist with the “limiting sense of things”; the deficit lens has to soften first.
- Turn to what is already given. Look — really look — at the Presence, the life, the supply already here. The wonder rises from recognition, not from manufacturing a mood.
- Let the response be wonder. Meet it inwardly with “ It is wonderful“ — said not as a slogan but as the genuine astonishment of one seeing the divine fact. Lanyon repeats it three times to let it sink past the analytical mind into feeling.
- Overflow into thanksgiving. Let it spill into uncountable gratitude: blessings, blessings, so many I cannot count them. The gratitude is for what is, present-tense, not a request for more.
- Hold it expectantly, without watching for results. Lanyon’s mark of the mature state is being “ completely satisfied that the law of God never fails“ — expectant joy that does not anxiously monitor for proof.
- Return to it through the day. Make wonder the habitual tone you meet things in — small recognitions, again and again — until “it is wonderful” becomes the standing attitude rather than an occasional exercise.
Source & Lineage
The practice is the whole burden of It Is Wonderful, where the phrase recurs as the soul’s response to awakening, and it threads through Lanyon’s wider corpus (Out of the Clouds, the I Came trilogy).
It sits in the mystical, Christ-consciousness wing of New Thought and overlaps the movement’s long-standing gratitude and praise practices (Shinn, Collier, Ponder), but Lanyon’s distinctive contribution is wonder as the keynote — astonished, expectant joy at the already-present divine — rather than gratitude deployed as a technique to procure results.
Common refinements
Forced positivity. Chanting “it is wonderful” through clenched teeth at circumstances you are inwardly fighting is the opposite of the practice. The wonder must be a genuine response to something actually recognized, even something small.
- Gratitude as a vending machine. Using thanks to get results re-installs the deficit it is meant to dissolve. Lanyon’s gratitude is for what already is, not a down-payment on more.
- Bypassing grief. Wonder does not require denying real pain or skipping needed action; honest acknowledgement and wonder can sit side by side.
- Refinement — anchor it in recognition. Pair with: the wonder is most natural and durable when it follows actually turning to the indwelling Presence, not as a standalone mood-trick.