Welcome to Day 5 of the Morning Routine Challenge here on Insight Timer.
How you begin the day matters.
Before the noise,
Before the rush,
There's a brief window where you get to choose how you show up.
This challenge is about being intentional with that time.
Let's jump in to today's session.
Good morning,
My friend.
My name's David Gandelman,
And I'm honored to guide you on this journey.
And we're going to start with creating a gratitude practice.
And not just building a gratitude practice habit,
But perhaps a ritual.
Something that has meaning for you in depth.
There's a study out of UC Davis that showed when you have a gratitude practice,
It can strengthen your immune system,
It can help with life satisfaction,
And perhaps my favorite,
It can help create positive cycles of kindness.
So as you close your eyes with me this morning,
See if you can really just be here with me for a few minutes.
As you close your eyes,
Drop into your body and start to appreciate life.
So you can start by having your eyes closed,
Letting your shoulders rest,
And just easing any tension in your body.
And let's start by having some gratitude for our bodies.
I'd like you to take your hand and just put it on your chest for a moment.
And as you slowly breathe,
Just see if you can take a moment and really have gratitude for your body.
Having a body is challenging,
But it's also very special to be here,
To be on this planet,
To be breathing.
Thank your heart for its steady rhythm.
You can thank your muscles for their strength,
Your senses for connecting you to the world.
As your breath slows down,
See if you can feel appreciation for the simple miracle of just being alive right now,
Even just for your capacity to experience this moment,
The gift that is consciousness itself awakening through you.
This morning,
This moment,
And every moment.
You can put your hand down.
Let yourself deepen a little bit more into the stillness of this morning.
And then I'd like you to refocus on someone you're grateful for outside of yourself,
Someone you love,
Someone who supports you,
Perhaps someone who challenges you to grow.
So find someone and just notice a sense of gratitude for what they brought into your life.
Take a moment and let that feeling just expand out of your heart center.
Let it permeate throughout your body and even extend out to that other person,
Almost as if you could touch them with your gratitude.
Notice how that feels,
That ability to appreciate someone else.
And as you do that,
You might also recognize that other people appreciate you.
And as you breathe deeply and slowly,
As you deepen into gratitude here with me,
Let's start to shift to one more thing we're grateful for,
And that is the opportunity for growth.
See if you can find some appreciation here for the gift life has given you to grow,
The challenges to grow,
The opportunity to meditate and allow your consciousness to flower.
Take a moment and just feel that appreciation for the opportunity to grow.
Allow yourself to just feel that blessing of,
Oh,
Sometimes life gives me something difficult,
But it's helping me become who I'm meant to be.
And instead of being in resistance to that or fighting it or arguing with it,
You're appreciating it.
See if you can feel that deeply in your being as you sit with me.
Today is a new day.
There's going to be new opportunities,
New challenges,
And you're starting it by finding this gratitude and feeling the sacredness of life.
Thank you for sitting with me.
I hope you make every morning a sacred ritual.
And when you have time,
Go into the forum and share three things you're grateful for in this life.
Be a part of the community,
Enjoy the challenge,
And have a beautiful morning every morning.
I'll see you soon.
