Gratitude Practice
This is a gratitude practice to cultivate resilience and appreciation for the numerous gifts in life. We are often focused on the things we have to do and get and achieve. We tend to overlook many blessings that are not in our frame of reference. Feel free to take some time to contemplate blessings and watch your outlook shift.
Transcript
There are so many beautiful gratitude quotes.
Here's one.
Gratitude turns what we have into enough and more.
It turns denial into acceptance,
Chaos into order,
Confusion into clarity.
It makes sense of our past,
Brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beatty.
I would like to share with you a gratitude meditation.
A gratitude practice can be used to promote hope,
Resilience and a positive mood.
And when we experience positive emotions such as gratitude,
Loving kindness,
Savoring and compassion and awareness practices,
Our creativity and problem solving capacities blossom.
We become more effective in whatever we choose to do because we're able to shift our awareness to promote our well-being and to support our resilience.
That is the focus of what I invite you to join me in.
So begin by finding a position where you feel fully supported.
Can be sitting,
Lying down,
Wherever you feel comfortable and stable.
Settle in and if you feel comfortable,
You can close your eyes.
This helps minimize distractions or maintain a soft focus,
Gazing downward in front of you.
Whatever you want,
You can look around.
It's all okay.
I invite you to take a slow deep breath and bring yourself to the present moment.
Becoming more centered,
More present,
Breathing into the belly so that it expands as you breathe in and releases as you breathe out.
Take a moment to mentally scan your body for any areas where there's tightness,
Pinching or soreness.
Breathe your warm oxygen-filled breath into that area.
As you breathe out,
Let the tension release.
Notice any worries,
Fear,
Irritation,
Judgment or anger that you may be experiencing and just breathe into those emotions,
Allowing them to loosen.
Any thoughts of memories,
Plans,
Associations,
It's fine.
Whatever happened this morning,
What you need to do this evening,
If you can,
Let's set that aside for now.
And just breathe in and as you breathe out,
Just let them go for now.
Thank yourself for giving yourself this gift of time to be fully present,
A gift of self-love.
Now that our bodies,
Emotions,
Thoughts are a little clearer,
A bit more spacious and open,
I invite you to begin to focus on some of the events,
Experiences,
Beings and things in your life.
Let's consider some amazing gifts.
We feel grateful for Source,
The gift of life itself.
The most precious gift,
Someone gave birth to you.
Someone fed you as an infant.
Someone changed your diaper,
Gave you clothes,
Bathed you,
Taught you to speak,
To understand.
The gift of a heartbeat,
Steady,
Regular,
Moment after moment,
Pumping fresh,
Life-giving blood to all your organs.
The gift of hearing,
So you can hear and learn.
The gift of sight,
So you can see so many beautiful aspects of the world.
Now think about all the things we have today that make our lives easier and more comfortable than they were for our great grandparents.
We flip a switch and light appears.
We turn a tap and clean,
Drinkable water flows.
We adjust the thermostat in the room and it's cooler,
Warmer.
We enter a vehicle,
Takes us where we want to go.
We have a roof to keep us dry when it rains,
Walls to keep out the wind,
Windows to let in the light,
Screens to keep out insects.
We have access to machines that wash our clothes and we have clothes to wear.
We have indoor plumbing.
We have public libraries with thousands of books and recordings to borrow and read.
Take a moment to reflect on everyday conveniences that you're grateful for.
What enters your awareness?
It's okay if your mind wanders.
That's what minds do.
If you want,
Take a moment to reflect on the thousands of people who have all worked hard without knowing you at all to make your life easier or more pleasant.
Someone who planted,
Grew and harvested food.
Someone who transports it to the market.
People who make roads and railways.
Others who maintain those vehicles and drivers.
Those who take the time to stock the shelves.
Who created the packaging that keeps the food safe and allows us to find what we need.
We're all interconnected.
Where is your mind right now?
Broadening your awareness,
Consider the people and paths that are part of your life that enrich your life.
Those who smile at you and cheer you on.
Those family,
Friends,
Acquaintances,
Colleagues,
Peers that make your life richer.
Take a moment to reflect on your own reasons for feeling grateful in this moment.
As you bring these things to mind for what you're grateful for,
Allow yourself to rest in this experience of gratitude.
When you cultivate this practice of gratitude,
You may even find yourself able to be grateful for difficult or unpleasant experiences.
Take a moment and bring to mind an experience in your life that might be a little challenging.
One for which you'd like to be able to express thanks for challenging you in some way.
Offering your appreciation for this challenge,
For what it may offer you.
Our challenges are often our greatest opportunities for our growth.
Often we would not choose them and we don't like it,
But the lessons,
Patience,
Acceptance,
Humility,
Understanding,
Perseverance,
Strength.
Help us bring in our higher selves.
It may take years to see the fruitfulness of challenges.
Sometimes it's easier to look back on past challenges with gratitude than with current ones.
If you can,
See if you can touch on our current one.
Continue to relax and release your tight muscles.
Let's go a little deeper into the experience of gratitude through a short visualization.
Begin by bringing to mind someone in your life who you care for deeply.
A parent,
Spouse,
Child,
Close friend.
Choose one and imagine them in your mind's eye.
Recall a moment when you felt particularly strong sense of connection with this person.
Could be recent or in the far distant past.
Allow your mind to go back to the sacred moment of connection.
Remember where you were.
You can use all of your senses to imagine the scene,
The location,
The time of day.
Anything that comes to mind.
See if you can go back to what you were feeling in that moment.
Love,
Presence,
Joy,
Contentment or true connection.
Notice how you feel throughout your body.
Any sensations or emotions,
Thoughts.
No need to judge.
Try not to analyze.
Simply allowing whatever you are feeling to come and go.
If you want,
Focus on one aspect of this moment that you feel particularly grateful for.
Setting your emotional state in the experience of gratitude.
As you're taking a few more breaths,
Continue to focus on this quality of gratitude.
Wiring the benefits of this practice into your body.
Savoring the experience of gratitude.
Awareness to the feeling of your body and breath as it is right now.
Your wiring,
This feeling into your cells.
Grateful for the body's intelligence,
The wisdom in every cell,
Organ and system that is divinely functioning for our benefit.
Grateful for awareness that we can be aware of our thoughts and emotions.
We have thoughts,
We're thinking people but we are far more than our thoughts,
Emotions,
Sensations or experiences.
We are awareness.
We are the boundless,
Eternal ocean that is love.
Connected with our ancestors,
With humanity.
See if you can just relax into that.
There is so much to feel grateful for in this moment.
Gratitude fills our hearts and minds,
Uplifting our spirit.
And as you transition out of your practice,
I invite you to move and stretch whatever feels good to you.
If you're keeping a journal,
Maybe note what you're grateful for and why it's meaningful to you.
Control on the strength of gratitude.
Thank you for practicing this heart centered meditation to promote your resilience and well-being.
May you be well as you move through the rest of your day with strength and resilience.
Thank you.
You.
