Gratitude And Our Senses

Actively bringing gratitude into your life can be the gateway to a happier and easier life. In this meditation we bring gratitude to our various senses. I hope it will be a restorative and nourishing sit for you. Thank you for being here.

Transcript

Find a comfortable seat for yourself and making sure that you can continue this position for the duration of the meditation.

And also keeping or making sure that your feet are flat on the floor,

So uncrossing your legs.

And then if it's comfortable for you,

Closing your eyes or otherwise perhaps lowering your gaze,

Just so that you can rest your eyes and bring your energy inwards,

Focusing on yourself,

As best as possible.

And then for the start of this meditation practice,

Bringing your attention firstly into your body and sending your attention all the way down to your feet.

Your feet connected with the floor,

With the foundation of the building you're in.

Or if you're outdoors then perhaps connected to the earth.

Maybe you can sense the weight of your body,

The weight of your legs being supported by your feet.

Then moving your attention up the legs and resting your attention for a bit on your seat,

On your sit bones,

Perhaps sensing the connection between sit bones and chair or whatever it is you're sitting on.

Maybe also here feeling the weight of the seated body.

Maybe you're able to relax maybe 5 or 10% more into your chair,

Into your seat,

Letting yourself be carried.

And moving your attention up past the spine,

Connecting with your upright position.

Making sure your spine is erect,

Your back is straight but also relaxed.

Then connecting with your hands perhaps they're in your lap or on your legs or on the arms of your chair,

Sensing the weight of the hands and the arms.

Bringing your attention up to the head and the face,

On top of your torso,

On top of the spine.

And seeing if maybe you're sensing any tension in the jaw,

Around the eyes if you can relax that a little bit.

Soften the face.

And then inhaling deeply for a couple of breaths,

Perhaps in through the nose,

Out through the mouth or whatever you feel comfortable with.

Breathing into the belly and inhaling all the way up until the crown of the head,

Filling your body with oxygen.

And if you notice the mind wandering,

If you have a busy mind,

Then just simply acknowledging that you were distracted and then bringing back your attention to the breath.

And in this gratitude practice we will be bringing our attention,

Our focus to our different senses,

Bringing gratitude to those senses.

Those senses are,

In fact,

Our antenna to help us feel and hear and see.

And antenna that can give us joy or protect us from danger.

That sometimes perhaps feed our intuition or drive our decision making.

And there are portals to perception,

Perception of ourselves,

Of the world around us.

And so firstly with this meditation,

Bringing your attention to the sense of feeling,

Of sensation and tuning into the body as a whole with your attention.

Seriously noticing how with our body we are able to feel pleasant sensations such as a warmth in the belly for example or a breeze against our skin,

Neutral sensations,

Tingling or fabric against skin of the clothes you are wearing but also unpleasant sensations like numbness or pain or itching.

We are able to perceive all of this with our senses,

With our ability to feel.

And it's the skin that's our biggest factor in using this sense,

This sense of feeling.

So maybe you'd like to use your hands and use this sense,

Maybe touching your other hand and sensing that connection of skin,

Warmth,

Becoming aware of how much information the skin actually gives to you constantly from your environment around you.

Your skin has this amazing task for your body.

It provides a physical boundary.

It's a filter for what comes in and what goes out.

And that's important information,

That filter is important.

It lets you know whether you are cold or warm,

Wet or dry.

With our skin,

With our hands for example we can feel different types of texture.

Silk for example or wool or wooden structures or the materials of plants,

Flower petals.

We can use our hands to comfort our children for example or other loved ones.

And the whole body in itself as well is an amazing instrument.

So it provides sensations but it can do so much more for us.

Seeing if you can maybe bring some gratitude,

Activate some gratitude for this sense of feeling and for our body as an instrument.

Our feet that carry us wherever we want to go.

Or perhaps if you're not able to use your feet you can use your hands to transport you wherever you want to go.

Our muscles that make us move,

That can help us to pick things up,

Reach out.

The heart that beats and keeps us alive automatically,

Same as the lungs.

Really breathing breath.

So seeing if you can find a sense of gratitude for this body of yours.

And then bringing your attention from the body to the sense of hearing,

To sounds.

Becoming aware of sounds perhaps within your body or sounds from near,

From within the room that you're in or from further away outside of the space you sit in.

Noticing sounds by itself,

Sounds within sounds perhaps.

Natural sounds or sounds made by machines or something else.

And seeing if you can perhaps also find some gratitude for this amazing gift of being able to hear.

Being able to receive messages of text and sound.

Hearing the whispering of the wind or the whispering,

The twittering,

The tweeting of a bird.

The voice of a loved one.

The most beautiful sounds of musical instruments.

But also maybe being grateful for being able to experience silence and appreciate it.

Those holy moments when we're able to experience everything around us because of the sounds we can hear.

Taking a moment to honor this sense.

And then bringing your attention to the sense of smell.

Maybe you're smelling something in particular right now.

Or otherwise you're probably able to imagine a broad variety of smells that we can smell every day.

The most powerful portal of perception,

The most powerful antenna that we have of experiencing,

Of noticing.

Smells can bring us a long cherished memory for example.

Smells communicate directly to our brain,

Our sense of smell,

Our nose.

So maybe being thankful for this sense as well,

This sense of smell.

Honoring how this sense gives you the ability to experience joy,

Pleasure and memory.

Enjoying wonderfully scented flowers and plants,

Food or the smell of the ocean.

Being thankful,

Grateful for how smells can also warn us for danger.

Dangers that we can't see immediately but we can smell them.

Being thankful for that ability,

For that sense.

And bringing your attention next to the sense of taste,

To the mouth and becoming aware of perhaps a distinct taste in your mouth at this moment.

Maybe from something you ate or a mint or chewing gum.

Seeing if you can bring some gratitude to the sense of taste,

The ability to taste.

Admiring another amazing gift of tasting food in your mouth,

All the different flavours.

Sweet and sour,

Salty,

Bitter.

But also honouring being thankful for the mouth itself,

For being able to chew our foods and to aid with digestion.

Help us to stay healthy.

The ability to enjoy different textures and structure of the food.

Lessing this ability to taste.

And then lastly bringing your attention to the sense of seeing,

To your eyes.

Another wonderful gift that we have of seeing all the beautiful sights around us.

The beauty of nature,

Animals,

Leaves of a tree,

Rock formations,

Flying birds.

But also this ability to see different shapes and forms,

The distinction between shadow and light and how shadows can dance into that light.

Being thankful for the ability to see the faces,

See the smiles of the people we love.

But also the ability to look inwards,

To look beyond matter.

Perhaps for this part of the meditation you would like to open your eyes or refocus your gaze.

Maybe you had already done that.

Just looking at whatever is around you in your room.

Shapes and colors,

Reflections,

Natural things or things made by humans,

The various colors.

And being thankful for that ability to see.

Then take another couple of deep breaths in through your nose,

Perhaps out through the mouth or out through the nose,

Whatever works for you.

Taking a deep breath into the belly and breathing up to the crown of your head.

With your breath acknowledging and honoring all these beautiful portals of perceptions that we have,

These senses that we use minute to minute,

Hour to hour and day to day.