Hello and welcome to this gratitude meditation.
This is a fun,
Easy,
And natural way to do gratitude.
And this is perfect for you if you have trouble sitting down and being still and trying to conjure up gratitude.
So it'll be short and I'll leave you with a phrase or a tool that you can try on for size after you finish this meditation and go about your day.
And the goal here is to find a more spontaneous way to do gratitude so that you can integrate it more naturally into your life.
So if this sounds good to you,
Go ahead and take a comfortable seat.
And have your hands either on your legs or perhaps palms down,
Touching the ground.
And we'll start to ground and drop into ourselves,
The ground beneath us,
The earth,
By taking a deep breath together.
And then when you exhale,
Relaxing all the way into your seat.
One more inhale,
Exhale,
Relax,
Feeling heavier with the exhales.
One more in and out.
And so by now you should feel a little more sturdy and more grounded in your seat and you can continue to welcome in a slower and deeper breath to maintain that connection.
And as you breathe,
I can share a little bit more.
So when we sit down and try to index through our day to find something that we're grateful for,
It can be hard because it's almost like you're forcing it or you're trying to call up something as deep and complex as gratitude but from a very disconnected and cerebral point of view,
Right?
As you're going through your day,
You're like,
Okay,
Was there something in the morning that I should be grateful for?
And when we do this,
We cut ourselves off from the full range of the experience that can be gratitude.
It can be such a complex emotion with so many tones and layers and something that just feels like it comes from the center of your being,
From your heart and flows outward in such a wonderful feeling.
So taking a moment here,
We'll inhale and exhale.
One more in and out.
Good.
Continue like this on your own.
And as you feel more at home in your body,
You can start to tap into a version of gratitude that gets to be fun and easy and natural.
So one way we can do this is by working with the phrase or phrases,
I can't believe I get to do this or I can't believe I get to have this or I can't believe this gets to be my life.
So try it on for size.
Go ahead and say these phrases in your own way.
And notice that you can infuse these phrases with different emotions and you can even say it in different ways.
If we can imagine a situation where you would say something like this,
Like I can't believe this gets to be my life.
Perhaps it could be as you're walking through a beautiful outdoor scene and you look around full of wonder and you'll naturally say,
Wow,
I can't believe I get to experience this.
Or let's say you're playing with a small child or a dog,
Having a lot of fun.
The type of emotion behind the saying is a little different,
Right?
It might be something like,
Wow,
I can't believe I get to do this.
Like full of excitement and fun.
And so these are just two examples,
But you can feel that although the emotion behind it is different and the situations that inspired you to utter,
I can't believe I get to do this,
I can't believe this gets to be my life,
They're different.
The gratitude that you flow into so naturally is deep,
It's embodied and it's easy.
So I hope this is something that resonates with you,
Something that feels like something you're eager to try,
Because that means we're on the right path.
We don't want gratitude to feel like a homework assignment.
And I encourage you to go out and keep this little phrase tucked in the back of your mind and notice when it spontaneously comes up and just enjoying the magic that is gratitude that comes up and takes you on a little ride when that happens.
To finish this practice,
We'll go ahead and place a hand or two on the heart and we'll breathe in here,
Breathe out here.
Maybe if it feels good,
You can in your own way say,
Hmm,
I can't believe I get to do this,
I can't believe I get to feel this way.
This is what comes up.
Thank you,
Have a wonderful day.
