Hi,
Hello and welcome to this small series on gratitude and gratefulness practice.
Starting your day or landing perhaps from a place of hardship or challenge,
Gratitude and gratefulness can enable us to work on our energetic and nervous system to allow us to feel safe and grounded.
Gratitude is not about forcing positivity or pretending everything is fine.
It is not denying any sensations or feelings that you may have within you.
When we consistently name what is here and what is supporting us,
What we have already,
In this moment,
Our body receives a message that there is no danger,
That I am held and I am resourced.
It signals safety and from that place our system can soften,
The breath and the beautiful life force can come back in through the body and we can shift from lacking into a more grounded place.
So find a position that feels good for you,
Perhaps with your feet firmly on the floor and allowing your pelvis to sink into the chair or ground or bed that you may find yourself in.
Find yourself softly reclined and comfortable and as you breathe a few breaths in and exhaling out through the mouth,
You can gently close your eyes.
Breathing in as you open them and closing them on the exhale.
So let's take a slow breath in through the nose and a long unhurried exhale through the mouth.
Breathing in through the nose and perhaps with a hum exhaling.
And one last time,
Deeply breathing in through the nose and exhaling with a sound or a sigh allowing the weight of your body to be received by whatever is holding you today.
And in this moment you don't need to hold yourself up.
I'm going to invite you to place one hand perhaps on your heart allowing yourself to feel your heartbeat or perhaps on your belly where you can feel the rise and fall of your breath or perhaps just nightly resting with your palms on your thighs.
Allowing your touch to be a signal of presence for yourself today.
And let's begin by noticing what is here in the space around.
Perhaps the temperature of the room,
The quality of sounds like a beautiful embrace.
Not needing to change them or shift them,
Just allowing them to be here.
Here I am alive in this moment.
And let's again bring the awareness back to our heart,
Our incredible organ that sustains its own beat,
Allowing the life force of the body and the blood to circulate through the body.
Let's see if we can find just one moment to be grateful for this incredible place that also represents the space of our emotions and our feelings,
Our love and our care.
Breathing into the heart with gratefulness.
Just that it purely exists.
Thank you for being here.
And let's see if we can extend this feeling of gratitude for our hearts out towards our lungs and our ribs.
Feeling them.
Inhaling and exhaling.
The incredible diaphragm that expands in all directions,
That brings the outside world,
The air,
The oxygen from around us,
Internally within us,
Giving us life and energy so that we can also breathe and live and support our systems.
Breathing in deeply and seeing if we can allow the gratefulness to spread from the heart space out over the chest and lungs.
Bringing this awareness down through our arms and our hands,
These incredible limbs and our articulated fingers that allow us to move through life.
For those of us who have and can carry and lift and shape the world around us to embrace and to be embraced.
Let us also extend our gratitude to our arms and our hands.
For all the work that they do.
Thank you for being here.
And as this gratefulness spreads from our heart over our chest and down our arms into our hands,
It also spreads downward from the heart over each incredible organ that supports each system,
The digestive system,
As well as the sexual organs.
All of these internal organs that are pulsing,
Vibrant with life,
We give thanks to our pelvis that holds all of this for us.
And allowing this gratefulness to sit in this bowl of our pelvis.
And in the upper temples of our chest,
We can say thank you.
Thank you for being here and doing your work.
And allowing this gratefulness to also spread over the legs and the thighs and the knees and down into the lower legs and the feet.
These incredible limbs that help us to move,
For those of us that are lucky,
From A to B,
That support our systems to be able to go new places and meet new people.
Let us also thank these sturdy foundational pillars that allow us to stand up.
Between the earth and the skies.
Thank you.
Let us also bring our awareness all the way down,
Allowing this gratefulness to flow through the heart and the chest and the arms and the hands,
Down over the torso into the belly and through all the organs,
Down the legs and over the beautiful articulated knees and ankles to our feet.
These delicate,
Small,
Incredible arches that uphold all of us every day that we take so little time for.
Let us spread our gratitude down to our feet and say thank you.
Thank you for all that you do.
All the places that you have taken me.
All the speeds of life that you have seen me through.
Thank you.
And let us also draw this incredible gratefulness back up through the feet.
Over the ankles,
Up through the knees and the thighs and the beautiful grounded pelvis.
Over the organs and the heart and the lungs,
Up through the fingers and the elbows and the upper arms to our shoulders.
And let us bring this energy up and be grateful for this beautiful space,
This delicate,
Fragile place where we find our voice.
Let us be grateful for our necks and our vocal cords that allow us to communicate,
To sigh,
To breathe,
To bring music into the world.
Thank you.
And spending a moment to allow this gratitude to come up through the jaw,
Noticing the lips and the mouth and the tongue and the teeth that also every day allow us to break down the outside world so that we can bring energy in and also express our gratitude.
Express our feelings and our thoughts outwards.
Let us bring some awareness and gratefulness to this organ,
These organs and this opening of our senses,
Taste and touch.
And also to the nose for our sense of smell and the gateway for the outside air to go in,
Cooling or warming up the air as we need,
Exhaling and inhaling.
And then taking a moment also to thank the eyes and the ears for all of their hard work,
In assessing what is happening in the world for our own safety,
Taking a deep breath in and exhaling.
And finally,
Allowing this gratitude rising from the whole body,
Swirling around the body.
Perhaps you want to visualize it as a beautiful light up to our heads and our skull and our brain,
This organ that works so hard processing all the input,
Creating ideas,
Assessing if things are safe,
Analyzing,
Comparing,
Building,
Imagining.
Let us also give thanks for this organ that is working so hard for us.
Thank you.
Now I'm going to invite you to take three deep breaths,
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth,
Allowing this incredible sense of gratitude to find its way through the body.
Perhaps you can feel the vibration somewhere,
Allowing this aliveness to glow,
To be witnessed and observed.
Again,
Inhaling deeply and exhaling.
And again,
Deeply inhaling through the nose.
And out through the mouth,
Applying a little pressure from your hand over your heart and your belly.
Bringing presence to you and thanking yourself for showing up today in this practice and naming the gratefulness you have for your body.
And may you start your day feeling this deep sense of thankfulness and groundedness.
