Hello lovely,
Pasha Lindy here.
How are you?
Today we'll be looking at self-appreciation and why this is such a beneficial quality to cultivate.
So let's have a go at a practice designed to help us appreciate simple good things in life.
So inviting us to find a comfortable sitting,
Standing or lying position.
And taking a few moments to get really comfortable,
Allowing the posture to be well aligned and well supported.
We'll be focusing our attention on ourselves,
So you might like to close the eyes,
Or if the eyes are open,
Just keeping a soft gaze.
And then taking a couple of nice deep breaths.
Encouraging a sense of letting go on the out breath.
And to encourage an extra sense of friendliness towards ourselves,
We might like to place a hand on the heart or somewhere else that we find caring and comforting.
Maybe even bringing a slight smile to our face.
And let's just rest,
Breathing here in a friendly way for a few moments.
And to start off with,
Just directing our attention to where we can feel the breath moving in the body.
And allowing the attention to rest there.
And for a moment,
Just appreciating the miracle of breathing.
We don't have to do anything.
The body is breathing,
The environment is supporting us with oxygen,
And the body is naturally releasing toxins on every out breath.
And this process that just happens quite naturally,
Keeps us alive.
Just taking a moment to appreciate that in our own way.
And if we experience any medical difficulties with breathing,
Maybe we could divert our attention to the other things that are keeping us alive,
And feeling some appreciation for those.
And so now we'll move into the gratitude practice,
Where we're invited to bring to mind 10 different things we appreciate about our day.
This could include things we enjoyed today,
Something somebody did for us,
Something we did for somebody else.
Maybe appreciating something that we often take for granted,
Like the car was working,
Or it wasn't too windy.
And for this practice,
You're invited to count all of these things to feel grateful for on your fingers.
So if you have 10 fingers,
That will be 10 things.
So let's take that first finger,
Bringing something to mind you'd like to appreciate from the day.
And as you bring it to mind,
See if you can also feel a strong sense of gratitude or appreciation inside.
For many people,
This is a kind of warm,
Open hearted feeling.
And before moving on to the next item,
Really taking a moment to tune in to that warm,
Open hearted feeling.
If that's there,
Permission to enjoy it for a moment.
And if it feels a bit dry,
Or you're not feeling warm at all,
That's okay too.
We can just treat this as a warm,
Open hearted feeling.
We can treat this as an exploration,
Allowing whatever feelings to arise and seeing if we can find a way to make space for that.
And then moving on to the next finger.
And I'll leave a little space now so you can just go through in your own time,
Bringing something to mind to appreciate,
Allowing yourself to enjoy the feelings of gratitude and appreciation inside.
And wherever you are in your list,
Just pausing for a moment,
Just wanting to check in with how many of the things in the list have been self-appreciation.
And just noticing if you haven't appreciated anything about yourself yet,
Let's find time to do that.
Bringing one or two things to mind to appreciate about yourself before we get to the end of our list.
And again,
If this feels really challenging or difficult,
It's okay,
That's a common experience.
Just seeing if we can make some space for whatever we're feeling.
Holding ourselves kindly,
Even if we're noticing some frustration or resistance or sadness to doing this.
And in a moment,
I'll guide us out of the practice.
So if you haven't finished your list yet,
Now's a good time to press pause.
Noticing how we feel now at the end of the practice.
And so to conclude,
Taking a moment to rest in any warm,
Open-hearted feelings we might have evoked,
Or simply to follow the breath as you wish.
And as we come back together,
Just reflecting on when we could integrate this into our day.
Is this something that might be useful to do?
Is this something we'd like to do at bedtime to help ease our transition into sleep?
And informally,
We don't have to notice eight or ten things at one time.
We can just simply pause during our day.
And if we're not able to do that,
We can just pause and think about what we might be doing next.
And if we don't have to notice eight or ten things at one time,
We can just simply pause during our daily life and take a moment to notice something good.
You'll also find a life coaching session on this topic called Appreciating Ourselves and Our Life.
This goes into a bit more depth on why humans are wired to be dissatisfied and look for problems.
And I don't know about you,
But I find it reassuring to know that there's actually a neurological reason for this and that I'm not alone.
So I'd recommend that next,
And that's on my channel too.
Well,
Until next time,
Dear friend,
Take care of yourself.
Bye-bye for now.
