Gratitude: a doorway to enlightenment?

I thought I would share an interesting idea I came up with during a reading yesterday. "Gratitude is a doorway to enlightenment."

I have heard gratitude being associated with abundance, especially by using the 'gratitude exercise' where one lists things to be thankful for in their life, no matter how small.  In the context of my client's reading, however, being grateful was bigger than just abundance or focusing on the positive. We used gratitude to transform her past.

When my client looked at her past, she was overwhelmed with an enormous sense of suffering and failure. This can lend to the idea that "all has been for naught." So, we did some re-framing of her past - and looked at each of the difficult and painful life experiences as a pathway through learning, healing, growing, and experience. Life lessons are gleaned through difficulty - just like muscle is built by lifting weights. It's the resistance in the world that strengthens us. I asked her to consider being grateful for her past. Grateful for the break up. Grateful for the suffering and death of a loved one. Grateful for the learning, the experience, the crying, the laughter - grateful for all of it.

Gratitude is a doorway to enlightenment.  It isn't enlightenment itself, rather, it is an opening to understanding, healing, acceptance, and re-framing.  By practicing gratefulness, we allow ourselves to be present to the things we love about our life, but we can also use gratitude to consider the positive aspects of the difficult experiences in life.

I would appreciate your ideas and opinions on this idea.