Gratitude

Welcome to today's gratitude meditation.

As you take a moment to get yourself as comfortable as possible in a seated position or perhaps lying down,

Whatever is most comfortable to you.

Take a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up for today's practice.

Making any final adjustments to get as comfortable as possible.

Gently softening your gaze,

Closing down your eyes.

Let's begin by listening to the sounds that are furthest away from you in the present moment.

What are the sounds that you can hear that are furthest away that are happening right now?

See if you can really stretch your listening.

And know that as you're stretching your listening,

What you're really stretching is your awareness.

Allow the sounds to help you inform your presence in the present moment.

Allow the sounds to behave as sonar,

Helping you geolocate yourself in the here and the now.

Having stretched the listening and the awareness,

See if we can focus our awareness and our listening to the sounds in our space.

So you can focus the listening,

The sounds of my voice,

The gentle sound of the music,

And any sounds that are occurring in your space in the present moment.

And as you're focusing your listening,

In fact what you're focusing is your awareness.

See if you can focus your awareness further as you go from listening to the sounds in your space to listening to the sensations of your personal space.

Your body noticing the rise and the fall of the breath,

The sensation of your body breathing.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out.

As you continue to breathe with presence,

Bring to mind three moments to be grateful for.

It could be any three moments.

If I may,

I encourage you to bring to mind a moment that was small.

Perhaps someone simply held a door open for you or handed you a pen when you needed it,

Or offered you a kind word when you were on your way.

We can find gratitude in the small things.

We can learn to find gratitude in everything.

Taking the time now to find three moments to be grateful for.

And now finding three things to be grateful for about your work or your daily life.

It could be the relationships you have,

Skills you're developing,

The person you show up as.

Perhaps it's what earning the money from work enables you to do outside of work.

Finding three things about your work,

Your career,

Your day-to-day living to be grateful for.

Now finding three things about yourself to be grateful for.

It could be any three things.

This is usually the hardest.

Not least because often we have a lot of negative self-talk.

This is an opportunity to cultivate some self-love.

So finding three things about yourself to be grateful for.

It could be the fact that you're hard-working.

It could be the fact that you're lazy and you find the most optimal way to do things.

Could be that you're a reliable person.

Could be that you're a caring person.

Could be that you're a good friend.

Could be that you're a passionate person.

Could be that you're willing to grow.

Finding three things about yourself to be grateful for.

And finally finding three people to be grateful for.

Three people without whom perhaps the experience of life would not be as enriched.

It would be a friend,

A mentor,

A loved one,

A pet,

Family.

Bringing to mind three people without whom life wouldn't be the same.

And just taking stock of how you feel.

Just benchmarking your energy,

Your state.

Noticing how you feel.

Something profound about gratitude is that we can't actively hold to emotions in our body at any given one time.

It's very difficult,

Near impossible,

To hold anger whilst feeling gratitude.

To hold shame whilst feeling gratitude.

To hold content while feeling gratitude.

So invite yourself to experience more and more gratitude.

To feel more and more peace in your life.

To gently bring some movement back into your fingers and your toes.

As you gently awaken the body,

Perhaps even inviting a light stretch,

Some gentle movement.

And here taking a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up for today's practice.

As you gently open your eyes and return to your day,

Energized and revitalized.

And as you open your eyes and return to your day,

Energized and revitalized.

And as you return to your day,

Energized and revitalized.