Attitude of Gratitude Hello again,
Dear friends.
Thank you for joining in on another guided meditation.
Starting right where we are,
This time and space for a meditation practice is something to be grateful for.
It is an intentional endeavor,
An opportunity for presence,
And a gift to the soul.
Much like unconditional love,
To be able to tap into the power of gratitude and make it our attitude,
It starts with taking away any conditions for it to be.
If we say to ourselves something like,
Oh,
Sure,
I'll be grateful when X,
Y,
Or Z happens first,
We are setting conditions and essentially creating a barrier to the very thing that can help us feel better about the world we all share.
An attitude of gratitude happens through practice.
A little bit every day helps to construct a foundational habit that serves us.
Contrary to the notion that practice makes perfect,
Practice makes progress.
Let's practice together,
Right here,
Right now.
Closing our eyes to begin meditation is something many of us do,
But it isn't a requirement.
Whichever way you feel most comfortable and able to allow a sense of peace and presence is the most important thing here.
You are not just free,
But encouraged to shape your meditation practice into something that feels right for you.
Now,
Let's take a few nice,
Slow,
Deep breaths.
Three or four,
At least.
If you can extend the exhale a little bit more with each one,
It automatically slows down the inhales and makes them fuller and extended,
Too.
And I encourage you to let out a nice,
Long sigh on the exhales,
Too,
If you can.
This activates the parasympathetic nervous system,
That rest-and-digest response,
Which tells your body it's safe to relax.
Breathing is simple,
Basic,
Yet isn't it a remarkable and beautiful thing?
If we're not breathing,
We're not alive.
When the world seems complicated,
Unfair,
Or overwhelming,
Falling into gratitude for something so simple and basic is always here for us.
If we are alive,
There can be no conditions for our breath not to be there for us.
Developing an attitude of gratitude and receiving all the amazing benefits of that attitude begins with finding gratitude.
It's very much like finding joy or finding love.
We find it by seeking it and practicing it in the most simple and basic ways that are available.
When we keep it simple,
We keep it accessible.
Just continue to breathe here with your attention placed gently on this beautiful breath or on anything that helps you feel grounded in this moment.
That could be sounds in the background,
Or a point of touch,
Or if you have your eyes open,
An object or scene in your immediate vicinity that feels calming and easy.
When our mind wanders from our point of focus,
We can readily forgive ourselves for not having perfect concentration.
A good meditation practice isn't about how well we can remain focused.
It is about how kind and loving we can be in our awakening and reawakening to the present moment.
This happens each time we recognize that our mind has wandered.
And there,
Once more,
Is an opportunity for gratitude.
This equanimity that we build by being okay with our practice being less than perfect is training ourselves in equanimity with life in general.
Again and again we repeat the response and each time we build a habit of mindful response.
A habit of mindful response overcomes a habit of mindless reaction.
Isn't that a gift?
A good friend of mine recently shared that her basement was flooded following a plumbing issue.
As she was sharing,
There were contractors actively using jackhammers and other loud,
Obtrusive equipment to repair the damage and restore her foundation.
But she also shared how she recently wept over the hardship that her family was dealing with in a foreign nation that was being actively bombed and at war.
My plumbing and foundation are first world problems,
She then stated.
She went on to express her gratitude for the safe country she now lives in and having the ways and means to solve what those back in her native land would gladly take over the life and death daily struggle they face.
This is a beautiful example of finding gratitude.
There is no doubt my friend has compassion and empathy for those struggling with war and hardship.
She honours them by finding gratitude and perspective in her situation.
Her activism for peace in the world is built around that gratitude.
She comes to it with appreciation for the basics of life and a desire for love.
On Insight Timer,
There's a plethora of resources on gratitude.
There are individual guided meditations and talks,
As well as full courses and workshops.
That speaks to the importance of gratitude as a key element of wellness and to the tendency that we all can use more practice.
Many people use a gratitude jar where each day they write down something to be grateful for and place it in the jar.
What better way to have more gratitude than a physical collection of it?
Another very effective method is to journal three to five or even up to ten things each day to be grateful for.
The act of putting these into a physical form has great benefits.
As we write them,
Our mind and our being are also reading them.
They become intrinsic and habitual.
Gratitude is a pathway to wellness.
When we walk a path of gratitude,
Joy,
Peace and love accompany us.
There's a saying,
When the going seems all uphill,
Just imagine the view from the top,
Which is a great metaphor on this idea of gratitude.
If we focus on the struggle and pain that challenges bring,
We intensify the struggle and the pain.
When we bring in gratitude for what our struggles lead us to or teach us,
We intensify resilience and joy.
I'm grateful that you are here and that we are practicing together.
The fact that millions of us around the world engage in this practice is something to be extremely grateful for.
It doesn't make the evening news,
But it is a big deal and it is changing the world.
See you next time.
