21 Days Of Morning Gratitude

On day one of our morning gratitude journey, we begin with a short explanation of what these next 21 days will look like. Then, as we close our eyes in meditation, we begin with the common experience of dealing with a noisy mind. And not just dealing with it, but recognizing the gifts of a noisy mind, the messages hidden in this noise, and how gratitude for the noise will actually help the mind relax.

When we wake up in the morning, our minds often get pulled by the gravity of a life challenge, or set of challenges. In this meditation we allow ourselves to become aware of one of these challenges, and learn to appreciate it for the lesson and opportunity it’s here to bring us.

If we can’t heal, understand, and let go of the past, it will always be pulling on us. Rather than fighting our past, if we can sit silently with it and have gratitude for it, we can loosen our grip on it and learn to be present.

After reconciling some energy with our past, in this lesson we focus on having gratitude for our ability to project into the future. It’s easy to feel bad or shameful about thinking about the future too much, but in this meditation we recognize how sacred this ability is and embrace it in a healthy way.

A very common human experience when we wake up is the feeling of not having enough time. Rather than feeling bad about not having enough time - and the stress that comes with it - in this meditation, we flip that around and recognize how sacred our time is. Having gratitude for the time we do have helps us step into the moment and have appreciation for life.

It’s often not the energy that we are working through that is the real issue but the resistance to that energy. Our resistance to an issue can often be the glue that keeps it stuck to us. As we step into today’s morning gratitude meditation we will focus on learning to have gratitude for our resistance, and to allow that resistance to move through us.

Our greatest lessons as human beings often come from our experience with other human beings. In this meditation we are going to work on having appreciation for the difficult people in our lives and the deep lessons that they bring us.

In this section of the series we are going to begin focusing on having gratitude for different aspects of ourselves. In this meditation you’ll be shifting your awareness towards your own self-worth to see if you can deepen into it in an honest way.

It’s very common for human beings to have self-image issues and judgment around their bodies. Rather than seeing the body as a blessing, we often see it as a problem. In this meditation we will be focusing on having a deep sense of appreciation for our bodies and for the life force that flows through it.

Our emotions color our human experience, but it’s so easy to feel conflict and resistance toward them. We spend far too much time approaching our own feelings from an analytical perspective rather than allowing them to just process. In this meditation we give ourselves license to feel, and we open to the wisdom of our feelings with gratitude.

Perhaps the mind - our ability to think, be creative, and project into the future and back into the past - is what makes us the most uniquely human. In this meditation we sit with appreciation rather than disdain for the human mind, and recognize that, used in the right way, it is an incredibly powerful gift.

After having focused on our gratitude for our bodies and emotions, we move to having gratitude for our inner and outer voices. In this meditation we ask ourselves a series of questions to tease out that inner subtle voice of wisdom, and then, practice a mantra to bring confidence to our outer voice.

Beyond the mind and emotions, we interface with life through the subtle vibrations of our intuitive senses. In this meditation we’ll focus on giving ourselves the permission to open up to our natural intuition by having gratitude for our unique senses, and giving them space to flower.

There’s a lovely quote from the Buddha where he says, “What you imagine you create.” In this meditation we focus on having gratitude for our own creative abilities. As we nurture and fertilize our creativity and give it license to roam free, entirely new dimensions to life begin to open.

For the last third of this series we’ll be focusing on having gratitude for the world around us. In this meditation we will be focusing on having gratitude for planet Earth. “We are born out of this planet the way an apple is born from an apple tree.” Today we will approach our meditation with awareness and appreciation by learning to create an energetic cord between us and the planet.

Perhaps one of the hardest things to have gratitude for is the wider human species. Even with all the conflict, pain, and suffering the human species faces, we can still sit and appreciate how far we have come as a group and the journey we are on together. In today’s meditation we will recognize our own wholeness as human beings and also appreciate that we are part of a larger community of humans.

In today’s meditation we step into a deep appreciation for all the organisms, big and small, that we share this planet with. Rather than seeing other organisms as lower consciousness or smaller than us, we recognize how each creature has something unique to offer the ecosystem of the planet.

After cultivating gratitude for the planet and all the beings that live on it, in today’s meditation we will be focusing on having gratitude for all the forms of creation that exist beyond the Earth. As we recognize the awesome power of the stars and the vastness of space and beyond, we open up our consciousness and gratitude to the cosmic forces of life.

Beginning with the story of Socrates and the Oracle of Delphi, in this meditation we step into giving ourselves permission to not need to know, and have gratitude for the unknown and unknowable aspects of life. When we are able to truly cultivate gratitude for the mystery of life, we find something precious that gives us peace.

In every culture there is a word for life force. In India they call it prana; in Hawaii, mana; and in China, chi. It doesn’t matter what we call it, only that we can connect with a deeper energy that permeates life. In today’s meditation, we sit and connect to this deep energy and experience a wide appreciation for life itself.

In our last lesson we have gratitude for ourselves for getting to the end of this course. In meditation, we bring in a sense of self-appreciation and self-love. In allowing ourselves to relax into the moment, we give ourselves license to enjoy life and to live a life full of gratitude. We end by recognizing that all the sacredness that exists in nature around us equally exists in us. And in that recognition, we come back home to ourselves.