Hi and welcome to this evening gratitude meditation.
This meditation is designed to help you close your day in a positive way.
It's recommended to either lie down in bed for this meditation,
But you can also practice in a seated position.
So come into a comfortable position and make sure that your body is supported.
You can feel free to close the eyes or simply soften your gaze a little and just allow yourself to begin to settle in.
Become aware of your breath,
Become aware of your body,
And become aware of the ground underneath you,
Supporting you.
Now bring your attention to your breath and allow your breath to settle,
Just allowing the breath to settle into an easy and intuitive rhythm.
Experience the gentle rise and fall of your chest and belly,
And simply let your body be breathed.
Tune into the steady rhythm of your breath,
The constant of the breath that tethers us to this present moment awareness.
Now begin to notice your body.
Where are you holding tension within your body?
See if it's possible to settle any tension with each exhale,
Feeling a sense of relaxation flow throughout the entire body as you exhale.
So let's do this together,
Bringing your attention to the feet and ankles,
Noticing any sensations and inviting in and feeling relaxation in the feet and ankles.
Moving up into the lower legs,
Knees and thighs,
Up into the hips,
Again noticing any sensations that are here right now and just inviting some relaxation into this area,
Allowing your legs and hips to be heavy.
Moving up into the torso and the spine,
Taking a moment to notice any sensations and see if you can feel relaxation envelop the torso and spine.
Moving up into the shoulders and down into the arms,
Noticing sensations that are here and inviting relaxation in,
Allowing the shoulders to drop away from your ears and your arms to be heavy.
Continuing with this as we move up into the neck,
Into the jaw,
The face and the head,
Noticing any sensations,
Any areas of tension or tightness.
With each exhale,
Feeling relaxation,
The whole head deeply relaxed,
The whole body deeply relaxed.
Again bringing the awareness back to your breath and the rhythm of your breath.
Notice its steadiness,
Noticing how it keeps us connected to this present moment.
And now bringing your awareness to the mind,
Simply begin to observe the mind.
See if you can simply watch thoughts without following them,
Just observing them as they come into our consciousness and then leave again.
Now bring to mind an event that happened today,
No need to assign a positive or negative judgment to the event.
Instead,
Can you feel a sense of gratitude for something that happened in your day today?
Just scan through the events of the day and pick one event that you may be able to be thankful for.
Was there a lesson that you learned?
Did you have a good laugh at some point?
Perhaps it was a delicious meal that you ate?
Did you spend time with others that you care about?
What are the things that you can be grateful for today?
Now noticing what gratitude feels like within your body.
What is the felt sense of gratitude?
See if you can tap into this and allow the feeling of gratitude to wash over your body,
Perhaps setting an intention to practice gratitude upon waking in the morning,
To continue this practice of gratitude.
Taking one last nice full breath in through the nose and exhaling fully,
Feel your body making contact with the support beneath you,
Noticing any sounds near or far,
Beginning to sense your surroundings,
Noticing how you're feeling.
If you're lying down in bed,
Feel free to drift off to sleep,
Otherwise just taking your time to come back to your day,
Bringing this felt sense of gratitude with you.
And when you're ready,
If you haven't done so already,
You can open your eyes.
Thank you so much for joining me in this practice.
I'm deeply grateful for you,
My friend.
Namaste.
