The Game Of Gratitude

Have you ever wondered how to lift yourself from sadness and desolation to happiness and pure joy? Let’s play the gratitude game! My dear friend, Pierre Bensusan, has permitted me to use his track called ‘Sentimentales Pyromaniaques’ from the album 'Altiplanos'.

Transcript

Life can get you down once in a while,

Don't you think?

And it's so interesting because I'm sitting here thanking Mercury Retrograde for my computer issues and all of that stuff.

And I think to myself that how do I get myself out of that?

Actually,

What I want to say is this.

How is it that I get myself out of those spaces of ickiness?

When I get irritated because of computer issues or things happen,

How do I get myself out of that?

And it always,

For me,

Everybody's different,

Right?

But for me,

It always goes back to gratitude,

Right?

So I'm sitting here laughing at myself saying,

Thank you,

Mercury Retrograde.

But you know what,

The reality is it's all a lesson anyway,

Right?

It's all a lesson at that point anyway.

So yeah,

So thank you,

Mercury Retrograde.

If we approach life like that,

If we can approach life like everything's a lesson and thank you for that lesson,

Then you know what,

We go through life a little bit easier,

Don't you think?

So,

So yeah,

So that was my point.

Oh my gosh.

So today we're going to talk about the gratitude game.

Have you ever heard of the gratitude game?

I am a person of gratitude,

Right?

So that's just how I live my life.

I wake up and my first thing that I try to remember to say is thank you and I go through what am I thankful for in my life,

That sort of thing,

Right?

And I love sharing that with people because there are so many people,

And I have friends that are just not into the whole gratitude thing at all,

Right?

But what happens is,

Is that I know how I am.

And so for me,

And like I say,

This is for me,

For me,

When I focus on gratitude in that space of computer issues or in that space of issues with anybody or anything,

The car or you know,

Whatever,

Right?

If I focus on the lesson and the gratitude,

Then it becomes a different thing.

So there is this,

You know,

And you may or may not have heard of the gratitude game,

But and you make up your own rules.

That's like the fun part,

Right?

That's the fun part.

You make up your own rules in this gratitude game,

Right?

And so I wanted to share this with you guys a little bit today because,

Because it,

Life is a game and if we make it fun or if we make it a game,

Then life goes on a little bit easier.

You guys are all so awesome and I love to share this with you,

Right?

So what I'm going to focus on right now is before we get into like a little bit of meditation,

Things that you can do to play this gratitude game with yourself,

With others,

Right?

So here's a few little items,

Right?

When you first wake up in the morning,

Quick,

Think of three things that you're grateful for or that you're happy about.

You know,

You don't even need to use the word,

The term gratitude.

Doesn't have to be,

You know,

It could just be happy.

What am I happy about today?

What are three things that I am happy about today?

Now if you're like me,

First thing in the morning takes me a few minutes to get kind of rolling because yeah,

You know,

But you know,

Once I'm up and I'm able to think clearly,

Like I try to go to that place of like,

Hey,

What's,

What's good?

What is good about my life?

I have an amazing roof over my head.

My life is,

Is really pretty great,

You know?

Right.

So you know,

You imagine a couple of things that you're grateful for,

Right?

Another thing that you can do is meditate on gratitude.

Meditate on thank you.

You know,

I mean,

You don't want to have to always use a Sanskrit mantra or you don't always have to listen to a solely music or,

Or your breath or follow your breath,

Which are all fantastic ways to meditate,

Right?

Because there's lots of ways to meditate,

Right?

So the next thing,

This is one of the things that I do personally that sets my life off on a whole different tangent,

Right?

I set reminders on my phone and I say,

Thank you for whatever,

You know,

Thank you for like,

Cause this insight timer and my podcast,

All of that.

Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity.

I love that,

Right?

Thank you so much for,

You know,

I actually,

The reminder on your phone could be right here,

Right now.

I love this one.

Stay present,

Right?

Thank you.

Right here,

Right now.

All is well.

That one just blows my socks off every time.

Right here,

Right now.

All is well.

I mean,

It doesn't get any better than that,

Right?

When you remind yourself to be present,

Like the phone,

We've got to like use it for good stuff,

Right?

So you know,

So there's that.

Okay.

Then there's another one,

Which is another fun one.

At dinner with your family,

It could be at a restaurant,

It could be in your house,

It could be just you and your significant other,

Or it could be just yourself.

You know,

You can go around and ask everyone at the table,

Give me one thing that was great about today.

Give me one thing that was great about today.

You know,

And that starts off like everybody sort of then gets in a good mood,

Which is always a nice thing in dinner,

Right?

And then lastly,

And there's hundreds of different things that you can do.

So I'm just giving you a few of like my personal favorites.

The last thing I'm going to tell you is you can create a family project,

Right?

This one is so much fun.

You can have,

You know,

Especially if you have little ones,

Oh my gosh,

To teach little ones the importance of gratitude.

I get chills thinking about it.

To teach little ones the importance of gratitude,

Oh my gosh,

It's immeasurable what that does,

Right?

So here's this game.

You write down on a little piece of paper all the things you're grateful for.

Like it could be three,

It could be five,

It could be 10,

Whatever,

Right?

Then all of you put all of your little pieces of paper in a jar and you shake it up,

You know,

You shake it up.

And then once a day you pull out,

I'm going to get crying,

I'm going to cry.

Is this just,

This just rocks my world,

Right?

You pull out one of those things and you read it together.

Oh,

I love that.

Love,

Love,

Love that.

So anyway,

So that's a few things in the plethora of things that we can do.

That's a few things that we can do.

So what are we going to meditate on today you guys?

We're going to meditate on gratitude,

Of course.

So let's get ourselves,

Let's get ourselves comfortable.

Put that smile on your face.

And that's another thing that you can do that just can change everything is when you're meditating,

You're going to love this.

Force yourself to smile.

Like even if it feels fake,

Put that,

Put a smile on your face as you're meditating.

It's cool.

It's something different to do,

Right?

Anyway,

So,

Okay,

So let's get ourselves comfortable.

Okay.

That could be laying down.

You could have your blankie if it's chilly,

Whatever works for you.

Let's take a nice deep breath in and release.

Appreciating that first deep breath of the day is another thing.

I could go on and on about gratitude,

Right?

So in sticking with our theme,

Let's consider,

Let's think about a few things,

Just a few things that we are grateful for.

What are you grateful for today?

Honestly,

I'm so grateful for the energy of the eclipse that's about to happen.

It's like we're in the middle and I'm sorry if you're listening to this later,

But we're in the middle of lots of planets being retrograde and the energy is all over the place.

But this soothing energy of the solar eclipse that is about to happen can be absolutely relaxing and healing.

So I'm grateful for that.

I'm grateful for this time with you guys.

And now as we sit in the stillness,

Our mantra for today is,

Guess what?

Thank you.

So I will keep the time.

We're only going to do this for a few minutes,

But repeat the mantra over and over.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will keep the time and let's begin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Start bringing your awareness back to the chair we're sitting in.

Let's take a nice deep breath.

Breathing in all that gratitude and release.

So were you guys able to say thank you that whole time?

What a great way to start the day.

I love that.

So fantastic.

So I'm so thrilled and I am grateful that you guys could all join me today.

And I'm just I'm very grateful for community supportive people in my life.

So so that's what I'm grateful for.

I wish you all so much love.

And from my heart to yours,

Namaste everybody.