Morning Gratitude

Mornings can be frazzled. We have so much to get done and we already feel behind before we even get started. Join me in this quick and calm meditation to give yourself space and time to notice what we already are and have, rather than jumping straight into the week chasing what we do not yet have. Gratitude is the antidote to “not-enoughness” - and paradoxically it can help us achieve more at the end of the day too.❤️

Transcript

Hello!

You are listening to Meditation and Coffee,

The weekday meditation podcast that helps you start your day off calm,

Aware,

Intentional,

Focused and most importantly,

Awake.

Because did you know that the word Buddha actually means awakened one?

I'm Hannah,

Your host and founder of the online meditation community Breathe Like a Badass,

And I am obsessed with starting the day with good coffee and seriously simple meditation.

As a trained meditation teacher and a female entrepreneur,

My mission is to help anxious yet ambitious women cut through overwhelm,

Negative self-talk,

Constant comparison and fear so they can get the calm,

Clarity and focus that they need to build happy,

Fulfilling,

Freedom-filled businesses and lives.

Meditation is not magic,

But it's a pretty good place to start.

So whether your coffee is a shot of espresso,

A latte decaf or even a tea or a chai,

I invite you to join me every weekday to start your day off right.

FYI,

These sessions are recorded live on my Instagram page,

At Breathe Like a Badass,

So if you'd prefer to join in and watch them live,

You can do so there every weekday morning between 8 and 8.

30am London time.

The videos are also available after the lives on my IGTV page.

Now,

On to the meditation and coffee.

Good morning friends,

We are live for another session of meditation and coffee.

I need to come up with a cool phrase to start these videos with,

Because I just always say that,

I always say a variation of that.

But um,

Hello,

It is genuinely the morning here in the UK,

As you can hear by this like,

Frog that I have in my throat this morning.

I actually started my day with some yoga today.

It's been quite a long time since I've done morning yoga.

It feels good.

It gets that energy flowing,

Right?

It gets that body moving.

So good morning,

I'm very happy to be here.

So after I've done my morning yoga,

I'm here to lead you in a simple but hopefully nourishing and hopefully calming and helpful morning gratitude practice.

Gratitude is an interesting one.

Very often people will say to you,

Oh you need to start doing a gratitude morning journal,

You need to write down you know,

Five things,

Ten things,

Whatever,

Every morning or every evening that you're grateful for.

And I've tried to do that so many times and I always just fall off the wagon,

You know,

I'm not very good at like morning journaling necessarily.

But I do think that taking some time to take,

To think about what you are grateful for can be a brilliant antidote to the stress and the hurry and the feeling as though you've always got to be doing something and being somewhere.

Because gratitude helps us to remember that we have so much already.

Modern life often tells us that we need to be doing more and achieving more and always going forward and always reaching that next milestone or that next goal that we've put in our journal or even something as simple as getting up and starting work and checking emails and it can feel very much as though as soon as we're awake,

We need to be on and we need to be doing and being productive and being stressed about the to do list and what next week holds and I think that a wonderful way to kind of counteract all of that stress and not feeling enough and feeling as though we've got to do more and be more is to just take a moment to remember what we already have and take a moment to give ourselves credit for what we've already done but also to look around us and think oh yeah I actually do already have so much and even if I don't accomplish anything this week,

Okay yeah I might be disappointed but would it really be as bad as my mind and my anxieties telling me you know can I look around or sit here and be present and notice what I already have.

Gratitude is not about shaming us as well I think sometimes people feel like if they're in a very anxious state and then someone says to them would just be grateful for what you have it can shift us into shame because we can start thinking like well you know how dare I feel bad because I have so much amazing things I have so much that is amazing in my life already you know or I have all of these things I've got so much to be grateful for and yet I'm still not satisfied you know what's wrong with me and I think that gratitude is not about making it a stick to beat yourself with as as all of these practices are not about beating yourself up it's about focusing very simply on the present noticing what what you are grateful for nothing too big or too small and simply sitting with that and maybe using it as a reminder to ourselves that we have achieved difficult things before and that we do have things now in our lives that maybe a few years ago would have seemed impossible or that we didn't know that we were going to have so it's not about beating yourself up and saying you know everything is fine if you're just grateful or you know you should be grateful for what you have and you shouldn't want anything else it's more just holding those two things in your hands at the same time dreams and goals that we still want that we haven't yet achieved but also taking the time on the other hand to be grateful for what we do have and what we have already done and then using that as a tool to allow ourselves to move forward because it's much easier to do hard things if we're being kind to ourselves and if we're reminding ourselves that we have done hard things before so without further ado I'm gonna invite you to come into meditation seat whatever that means for you you can sit comfortably on a chair or a cushion or anywhere that you feel supported allowing your back to be supported but not so much that you're leaning backwards and that you're about to fall asleep and allowing your shoulders to drop and your head and your neck to be balanced and open and allowing your spine to become straight and supporting your body and allowing yourself to let your hands fall wherever feels natural and if you like you can close your eyes if that feels safe or you can just keep them open looking gently in front of you and I invite you to take some breaths they don't have to be particularly deep just whatever style of breathing feels good to you right now allowing yourself to come into position come into posture and just reminding yourself your mind and your body that you do have permission today to be here to be taking this time to be doing this practice with me today thank you so much for joining me that's something that I'm grateful for this morning that I have a space that I can offer these practices through and that even if people watch the replays and they don't join me live I'm still so grateful for every single person that takes the time and gives themselves that gift and that space during the day to do these and to check in with themselves so thank you for being here and for doing this now continuing to breathe and I invite you to drop your shoulders even more and allowing yourself to notice your breath just traveling in and out of your body very gently noticing where you can feel your breath the most powerfully in your body maybe it's your nose your mouth or your chest and then I invite you to consider what you're grateful for maybe a few things will come to mind or maybe just one big thing and it can literally be anything that speaks to you what do you have right now what have you done what can you be or who are you that you are grateful for today when gratitude can feel like many different things in the body for some people gratitude might feel like you know a warm sensation in your chest for others gratitude may feel just like a sense of safety a sense of wonder happiness peace contemplating what we're grateful for big or small and when you think of that thing as I say it can be anything big small mundane insignificant or something really big noticing what it feels like to focus on that thing and allowing ourselves to notice how that affects our body does it make us feel warm safe calm does it make us feel relaxed joyful balanced what sensations can you notice in your body when you think of what you're grateful for right now and again allowing yourself to breathe refreshing your body with that fresh oxygen I'm taking this time to notice your entire body sitting here today in this particular practice and noticing what it feels like to be here in your body sitting breathing noticing today and if you're ready you can come back into the room open your eyes stretch a little bit if you need to and allowing those feelings of gratitude whatever they might have meant to you to sit within the body just for a few more moments before we get up and go about the rest of our day just allowing ourselves to be with that feeling of goodness and abundance honestly I don't often use the word abundance but I think in this particular case it's useful like I say this isn't about beating ourselves up and saying we have so much to be grateful for already so how dare we want more or how dare we be unhappy or anxious it's not about that it's just more how can we notice the good things that we already have and how can that provide a calm and nourishing platform that we can build the rest of our actions and the rest of our goals on so to to be aware of our good fortune and to be aware of everything we already have maybe in comparison to others maybe it helps us to remember that so many others don't have the fortune and the good things that we have but at the same time allowing that to be fuel for us to feel good and work from that place of gratitude and noticing everything that we already have in our lives rather than working from a place of scarcity and lack where we focus only on what we haven't got and what we haven't yet done and the energy and the feeling that that produces in our body is very different and I feel like the gratitude is more positive and sustainable and makes us feel good as we go about our work rather than bad and as if we're not enough it's the antidote to that feeling of not enoughness that so many of us myself included can struggle with so often when we try to do good things and big things and difficult things so thank you so much for joining me today I do have my massive cup of coffee in my in my beautiful red mug today and I am grateful this morning for my collection of colorful mugs which do bring me genuinely so much joy especially when I pick out my mug for my daily meditation and coffee sessions so from me to you and my colorful mugs I am very grateful that you're here today and thank you so much for being here let me know how your gratitude impacted your body if you're watching the replay drop me a comment let me know if you like if you want to what you were grateful for this morning especially and how it made you feel and I'd love to see you back here for another meditation and coffee tomorrow morning thank you so much for being here I'll see you soon that's it for today thanks so much for listening and spending your morning with me if you like this podcast and you are as obsessed with coffee and maybe meditation as I am please go ahead and leave a rating and a review on apple podcasts or whatever you normally listen as it helps spread the word and get the message out to more brilliant women just like us who need it you can also share with your friends on instagram tagging me at breathe like a badass I always love to see you there if you like this and you'd like to hear more from me and breathe like a badass on how to use meditation to get the calm clarity and focus you need to build a happy fulfilling freedom filled business and life head on over to my other full length interview style podcast just search breathe like a badass anywhere that you normally listen to podcasts thank you so much for listening and I will see you for the next one.

Reviews

🙏✨🙏

Amazing thank you, now heading to your podcast! Love from Australia

This was a lovely morning meditation- I did it sitting out on my balcony this morning 💜 Thank you for giving me a reason to slow down! 🙏

Seriously simple meditation embedded in clear explanation 💕Thank you Hannah Jane

☮️🙏😁❤️

Thank you so much Hannah :)
I was really grateful for my life partner today morning :)
All this talk about coffee got me craving for some though haha so I’m gonna go have a cup :)