Welcome to today's gratitude meditation.
Take a moment to get as comfortable as you can in a seated position or perhaps lying down,
Whatever is most comfortable for you.
And then close down the eyes,
Relaxing inward.
Take a moment just to take a couple of breaths into the center of your chest.
Invite the quality of a smile across your chest and let your mind merge with that,
Smiling inward.
Just feeling some gratitude and appreciation toward yourself for showing up in this way for yourself.
And take your hand over your heart.
Breathe deeply in a way that connects your hand to heart.
Feel your heart,
The strength and power that pumps your heart.
Feel the blood flow,
The oxygen,
And be grateful for your heart,
Your heart that gives you life,
You don't have to do anything to make it beat.
You just get to be.
You can just feel it and feel gratitude for that.
Get present to it.
Notice the state of your heart today.
Author Polokwelo says,
I'm not going to let you go.
I'm not going to let you go.
Author Polokwelo says,
You'll never be able to escape your heart.
So you might as well listen to what it has to say.
So as you breathe into your heart,
I want you to bring to mind one person that you could feel so grateful for if you wanted to.
Maybe someone you know well or someone you know only through books or teachings.
It could be a friend,
A mentor,
A loved one,
A spiritual being,
Or even a pet.
You might imagine their smiling face or remember the sound of their laughter,
Recall their voice.
You might just imagine to feel them there with you.
And now I want you to think about why you're grateful to them.
Let them know and just feel that,
Feel that gratitude,
Breathe it,
Feel it,
Enjoy it.
Again,
I want you to breathe deep in your heart and now bring to mind something about yourself that you are grateful for.
If this is difficult,
You can call forth the person you are grateful for and imagine what they might have to say about you.
What might you be grateful to yourself for?
It could be that you're a good friend,
Could be that you're accomplished,
Determined,
Constantly improving and learning.
It could be that you got yourself through some hard things or that you gave yourself some opportunities and experiences that made you more the person you are today,
Something you were so,
So grateful to yourself for.
Feel your breath expand the back of your heart,
The front of your heart,
Fill up with a breath,
Expanding your heart space.
This time I want you to bring to mind an experience,
One moment,
One event that you could be grateful for right now,
A magical moment,
A sacred moment,
A sexy moment,
An intimate moment,
A breathtaking moment,
One moment that really stands out as a moment you could be grateful for.
What are you so grateful for?
Feel that in your body as if you were there.
What's going on?
See what you saw,
Hear what you heard,
Breathe as if you were there,
Really feel the gratitude so you can experience that moment as if it were happening right now.
Experiencing that moment that makes you smile or that you feel so thankful for.
Keep breathing into your heart.
Gratitude turns pain into medicine.
It is the antidote to scarcity and fear and worry.
Typically we expense so much energy in the pursuit of more of what always comes to feel like nothing.
We don't practice wanting from a place of abundance.
We think of wanting as something we don't have.
So I want you to feel this gratitude,
Keep breathing into it.
A simple gratitude practice like this one trains us to start thinking about things that you want,
That you already have,
Relationships,
Character traits,
Things,
Experiences.
And now I want you to answer this question.
All I need to focus on today is what?
All I need to focus on today is what?
All I need to focus on today is what?
Happiness and contentment isn't about how much we have,
But about how much we are able to notice.
As my meditation teacher,
Jack Kornfield says,
Anything that can be lost was never truly ours.
Gratitude isn't about the having or the not having.
It's about getting present enough to our lives to know that we will always have ourselves.
And when we have ourselves,
Then there's nothing we can't do,
Be or create because we know how to focus our minds in alignment with our hearts deepest desires.
Gently bring some movement back into your body,
Perhaps even inviting a light stretch,
Breathing in to fill up with gratitude.
And then when you feel ready,
Open your eyes and see what it's like to look out on your life with eyes full of gratitude instead of eyes full of wanting.
Instead of eyes full of wanting.
