Gratitude Is A Doorway To Your Heart

The practice of gratitude opens a doorway to our heart… But what is it? In this talk I explore what gratitude actually is, what’s happening inside you when you do it, and how you can use it to reconnect to your heart.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Peacekeeper Project.

My name is Ben.

Now today I want to talk about the power of gratitude to help you reconnect to your heart.

And this is important because living from our heart in a world that can feel chaotic and painful at times is challenging.

But gratitude is one of these ways,

One of these practices that can help us do that.

So I'm gonna talk about what is gratitude.

And there's more to this than you might realize.

And if you've practiced gratitude before,

Then this might help you to understand it more deeply because it might give words to your experiences that you didn't have before.

I'm also gonna talk about how you can use gratitude to shift your state of mind and how it fits into a broader context of healing and doing the inner work.

All right,

So let's get started.

What is gratitude?

Now as we get started here,

I want you to feel it.

This is not supposed to be just a mental exercise where you understand the concepts just with your mind.

It's about feeling it,

Feeling the sense of gratitude and how it changes you and your energy.

So let's start by just placing your awareness here in your heart and recalling a time when somebody did something for you,

Something that really helped you out.

Maybe it was a really thoughtful gift.

Maybe it was a piece of valuable advice that changed your life.

Maybe it was some honest reflection.

Maybe someone held a space of warmth,

Understanding and non-judgment when you were upset.

Whatever it is,

Just feel it.

Feel the response in your heart.

It feels good,

Right?

Because there's this intimate connection between gratitude,

Receiving and our heart because gratitude is a heartfelt response to receiving.

When we feel gratitude for someone or something,

It makes us feel closer and more connected to that person or thing.

And it also makes us feel more connected to ourself.

It brings an expanding,

A softening and an opening to our heart.

So gratitude is opening the doorway to our heart.

Now we can take this even deeper and I encourage you to engage your curiosity and wonder as we do so.

So when we engage a real genuine sense of gratitude at a deeper level,

There's this feeling that the universe or creation has provided us with something that we needed or wanted,

Whether we were aware of it or not.

So it might have come through another person such as a gift or some support,

Emotional support or advice.

But while it might have come through another person,

It was something much greater that responded through them.

There was a need or a want and the universe responded.

This leads to another aspect of gratitude and that is the connection between gratitude and abundance,

The feeling of gratitude and the feeling of abundance.

So the examples I've given so far have been about someone who's given you something and you recognize that in the moment.

But we're receiving things all the time,

Things that we sometimes take for granted and things that we don't often recognize in the moment.

For example,

How often do you take a moment to realize and acknowledge that the oxygen you receive in the air that you breathe comes from the plants and the trees?

Or what about the sun in the sky?

Or for how the earth provides all the nutrients for plants,

Fruits and vegetables to grow?

Or this incredible process,

This intelligence that essentially transforms earth into the food that we consume,

With the help of the sun,

Of course.

Or what about the bees and how they contribute to the pollination of plants and flowers?

All of these things,

The earth,

Nature is constantly giving to us and we're constantly receiving.

But how often do we actually feel it?

Because when we actually take the time to feel it,

To acknowledge it and feel what is being provided and what we're receiving,

Then it naturally opens our heart to the abundance of life.

So practicing gratitude can help shift our state of mind from one of lack to one of abundance.

So anytime you can practice gratitude by tuning into all of what nature provides,

What it gives us,

It's extremely awakening and nurturing for our heart.

Now let's keep going,

Because gratitude is more than what we do,

It's more than just what we think.

Now our thoughts can help take us there,

But ultimately it's a state of consciousness,

It's a state of mind,

It's a state of gratefulness,

Where we feel more connected to each other,

Nature and all things.

Now,

Before I get into practicing gratitude,

More about that,

It's important to keep in mind that gratitude or practicing it is not a substitute for doing the inner work,

The inner work on our emotions,

Our fears,

Traumas,

And understanding them.

So gratitude is a practice that helps support our journey,

Our healing journey,

Our awakening journey.

So when we work on our emotions,

We release our emotions and traumas,

This helps us to feel more gratitude or be more present with gratitude.

And when we practice gratitude,

It helps us to be more present with our emotions,

It helps us to go deeper,

Because it helps us to develop a little more flexibility with our emotions.

Because when we can engage gratitude to help shift our state of mind,

When we might be feeling down or depressed or whatever you might be feeling,

You can use it as a practice to engage a different part of you.

Now,

There may be times in your life,

Situations where you feel like there's nothing to be grateful for.

Now that's a very valid experience,

And those emotions underlying that may need to be looked at.

But there is always something that we can be grateful for.

Just because we don't think about it,

Doesn't mean there's nothing to be grateful for.

So there is an opportunity to use it to shift our state of mind.

Now,

To be clear,

That does not mean suppressing your emotions.

It just means choosing to practice gratitude so that you can shift your state.

Again,

Like I mentioned before,

Practicing this emotional flexibility,

The ability to shift between states.

Now,

We have to look at the emotions,

That's important,

But the ability to be able to move,

That's also important.

And it creates and develops these,

We could say meta skills.

The ability to focus and be present,

To be able to shift our state.

And this is really important.

All right,

So what can we do?

How do we practice gratitude?

So you can start by reflecting on all the people that you have in your life.

Your family,

Your friends,

Workmates,

Maybe teammates in sport.

Reflect on all the ways that they might have helped or supported you in some way.

Maybe insignificant,

Seemingly insignificant,

To more obvious.

Maybe it's just a simple smile every time your friend sees you.

Maybe it's giving you a roof over your head when you really needed it.

So as with nature,

Just feel this giving and providing that somehow the creation or the universe has provided for you in that moment.

It's flowed through someone or through nature,

But it's given you something that you needed or wanted in that moment,

Even if you weren't aware of needing it or wanting it in that moment.

Sometimes we don't realize we need a smile from a friend,

But on reflection,

On reflection,

We realize that it compounds and it does feel good.

It does impact our life.

And sometimes we can't be grateful for something in a moment,

But on reflection,

We can be grateful for things that we weren't grateful for in that moment,

In that time.

And there's really no limits to practicing gratitude.

All the things that you've taken for granted,

Things you haven't thought about,

Allow your mind to expand and go there.

Technology,

For example,

Internet,

Computers,

Smartphones,

Now they can all have various impacts in our life,

But it can bring a lot of good things.

For example,

Has it helped you to connect more with family and friends in ways that it didn't before,

That you couldn't before?

So really let your mind go.

Let your mind expand into all the ways.

Engage your curiosity and your wonder,

Because there's,

As I said,

No limit to how deep you can go with this.

And ultimately,

It's about shifting from the thing,

Specific thing we're grateful for,

To a general sense of gratefulness.

And this is something that I guide you through in a guided meditation that you can access on my website,

Peacekeeperproject.

Com.

It's under guided meditations,

And I'll leave a link for that in the description below.

Now also remember that this is like building a muscle.

The more you practice,

The more you strengthen it.

The more you strengthen this connection between you and your heart.

And gratitude is one of these workouts that can help strengthen that bond.

Now the last thing I'd like to say is that the more you practice,

The more you start to shine your heart.

You connect to it,

You shine it into the world.

And that is good for you,

That's good for all of us.

So thank you for doing this work and diving in to gratitude.

All right,

I'm gonna leave this here.

Thank you for being here.

I appreciate your presence.

And until the next time,

Quiet your mind and live from your heart.