The Depth And Breadth Of Gratitude

At its heart, gratitude is about widening our perspective. We see beyond our negativity bias. We practice embodying gratitude for what is most obviously beneficial. We explore aspects of our lives that we take for granted. We look at the interactions that bring us what we are grateful for, and our part in those. We explore cultivating gratitude in the presence of challenges (paradoxical gratitude). We also explore "unworldly gratitude," independent of our experience being any particular way.

Transcript

I'll invite you to find yourself in a meditative position,

A position that's comfortable,

One that you can sustain.

Letting your eyes either be closed or open with a soft gaze,

Your hands comfortably in your lap or by your side,

However they happen to fall.

I'll invite you to take the first few moments of this meditation to simply notice that you are breathing.

This is a meditation on gratitude,

We might take a moment to sense some gratitude for the fact that we are breathing at all.

Now this breath sustains the body,

Energizes every cell.

And now bringing to mind some aspect of your life for which you experience gratitude.

It could be a relationship in your life or some activity you engage in,

Maybe it's something that you have in your possession,

Maybe it's some aspect of your environment.

You may have many aspects of your life that you're grateful for,

I'll invite you to choose one of them at this time.

And when you bring this particular aspect of your life into your mind,

I'll invite you to bring it into your active imagination,

Sensing yourself engaging with this aspect of your life.

You might notice where you are,

Who else or what else is there,

What's being said or done,

Whatever.

The more you allow yourself to bring this aspect of your life into your mind,

Beginning to sense any felt experience of gratitude.

Perhaps it shows up as warmth or openness or relaxation or lightness.

Perhaps you'll notice it in the chest or the belly,

The shoulders,

Face,

The mind,

Or even the whole body.

Sometimes the sensations of gratitude or the sensations of well-being or the sensations of joy or love may be subtle.

Noticing whatever you can,

And wherever you feel sensations of gratitude,

You might imagine that you can direct your breathing across those sensations,

Just like you would breathe across a small flame,

And it invites that flame to grow both in intensity and size.

So too you can breathe across the sensations of gratitude,

And as you do,

You invite them to grow in intensity and to feel more and more of your body.

Taking the next minute or two to simply savor the felt experience of gratitude.

Now bringing into your awareness another aspect of your life that you can be grateful for an aspect that typically you take for granted,

Typically that hangs out very much in the background,

Such that you rarely even notice its existence.

When you bring this quality,

This aspect of your life that you can be grateful for but don't normally notice,

Taking a little bit of time now to cultivate an awareness of all the ways that this aspect of your life is beneficial to you,

Cultivating a deeper sense of gratitude for this aspect in your life.

It may be helpful to imagine what would it be like without this aspect in your life.

How would things be different as a way of highlighting what this aspect brings you?

You might also begin to trace back to how this aspect of your life even has come to you,

Tracing back the whole network of actions and intentions and aspects of nature or whatever it might be to recognize the whole web of causes and conditions that have made this aspect in your life possible.

As you sense into this web of causes and conditions that have brought this aspect of your life to you that you can be grateful for,

You might begin to recognize your own being as a continuation of that same web of causes and conditions that you,

Just as you are,

Are part of a web of causes and conditions that bring aspects to others,

That you have gifts that either come from you or through you.

You might be able to take a few moments now to savor those gifts.

Very often it's easy to miss them,

The capacity to listen or bring kindness,

The capacity to lead others or to get others to work together,

Capacity for organization,

Order,

Humor.

All sorts of gifts coming through each one of us.

Taking a moment as best you can to simply honor these gifts.

Sometimes the inner critic will arise as we consider the gifts that we bring forward into this world,

Telling us we're not enough in some way,

Just recognizing it's an old voice from a very young age.

One can honor knowledge presence and then turning your attention deliberately to that which you bring into this world.

And how you,

Just as you are,

Are part of this whole universal unfolding.

Now we'll be moving into a period of what we might call paradoxical gratitude or silver lining gratitude.

This is where we cultivate gratitude in relationship to the challenges we're experiencing.

So to begin I'll invite you to bring to mind some challenge that you've experienced in the past,

A challenge that's now been resolved.

But at the time you didn't know how that would happen.

And as you bring this challenge to mind,

This challenge from the past,

Sensing as best you can,

Remembering as best you can,

What were you like when you were in the middle of it?

How did you experience yourself,

The challenge,

The world?

Noticing perhaps any experiences of fear or hurt or anger or confusion.

Then taking yourself beyond the challenge to where the challenge has been resolved.

And looking at the whole experience from the place of this resolution and noticing what has come out of the challenge that you can be grateful for.

Perhaps you've cultivated a sense of compassion or tenderheartedness and understanding of others.

Perhaps you cultivated a sense of resilience,

Strength,

Perhaps wisdom.

Perhaps this shifted your understanding of the world and yourself in some way that benefits you now.

Noticing what you can,

That you can be grateful for that has come out of the experience of this challenge.

And once again,

If the sensations of gratitude are small,

Just imagine you can direct your breathing through those sensations,

Inviting the sensations to grow.

And then taking this understanding that challenges have their own aspects that you can be grateful for and bring that to some current challenge you're experiencing.

Perhaps as you bring this challenge to mind,

You might already see aspects that you can have gratitude for,

That you can savor.

And if you can't find any aspect at this time that you can be grateful for,

Perhaps you can sense a kind of trust that coming out of it there will be aspects that will be beneficial.

And once again,

Breathing with any sensation of gratitude that you can discern in the midst of whatever challenges you're experiencing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And for the last part of the meditation,

We'll be practicing with what we might call unworldly gratitude.

Gratitude that is independent of anything in particular in the world being a certain way.

And the way we'll practice this is we'll start by simply saying thank you for and whatever is the first thing that comes into your mind and then the next thing and then the next thing.

Thank you for this,

Thank you for that,

Thank you for the next thing.

The purpose here is to flood the mind,

To keep practicing saying the next thing that you're grateful for until the mind can no longer keep going.

There'll still be many,

Many more things that you can be grateful for but the mind kind of gets saturated.

At which point you simply say thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Letting go of any of the specifics.

Thank you.

Until you start to feel the sensation of gratitude in your body,

At which point you stop saying thank you and simply rest in the felt experience of gratitude.

I will guide you in this.

I will guide it softly so that it doesn't interfere too much with your own process.

You can offer the gratitudes,

The thank yous out loud or in your mind,

Your choice.

Here we go.

Thank you for this group,

Thank you for my shoes,

Thank you for windows,

Thank you for a roof over my head,

Thank you for my partner,

Thank you for my teachers,

Thank you for trees,

Thank you for my pets,

Thank you for the carpet,

Thank you for electricity,

Thank you for the Thank you for the sun,

Thank you for clothing,

Thank you for the food I get to eat,

Thank you for the air that I breathe,

Thank you for my heart beating all by itself,

Thank you for cabinets,

Thank you for my friends,

Thank you for my parents,

Thank you for these teachings,

Thank you.

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you.

.

.

And as the sensation of gratitude gets established in your being,

Ceasing any of the words,

And just simply resting in the experience of gratitude.

And just simply resting in the experience of gratitude.

And just simply resting in the experience of gratitude.

In a few moments I'll be ringing the bell to end the meditation.

The invitation is that before you open your eyes,

Before you begin to engage in the world,

That you form the intention to bring this sense of gratitude however it shows up for you,

With you.

So that as you begin to engage again,

Somewhere in the background,

You allow this felt experience of gratitude to inform you,

To inform all of your actions and thoughts and interactions.

And as you begin to engage again,

Somewhere in the background,

You allow this felt experience to inform you,

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