So coming once again to stop and reflect.
Taking your mind once more from the thinking to come back into the body and being.
So using the breath again as a focal point for your attention as best you can.
Gathering in that attention that has perhaps been outside of your body.
Going off in thought.
And it might feel like gathering cloud.
Do what you can to gather your attention inwards.
Finding your breath once more where it is moving most strongly in your body right now.
Perhaps finding movement at your ribs.
Rise and fall of your chest.
The expansion and contraction of the muscles at your belly.
Or perhaps the sense of air moving at your nostrils.
Anywhere that allows you to draw your attention to your breath.
And settle alongside it.
Just seeing if you can hook your attention to the entirety of the cycle of your breath.
Starting at the beginning of an in-breath.
Following that process all the way through.
All the way to the end of an out-breath.
Perhaps seeing if you can almost allow yourself to be rocked by the flow of the breath.
Movement in and the movement out.
Like waves on the beach.
One hurried.
Each a little different.
But consistent.
Wave following wave.
And perhaps feeling how that wave moves through your body.
Feeling a sense of how that in and out affects your whole body.
And you find a sense of that rocking motion.
You tune into a sense of the predictability of out-breath following in-breath.
Following out-breath.
Following in-breath.
Nothing you need to do to force it to happen.
So you can perhaps incline your mind to trust that the next breath will happen.
And all you need to do is simply experience it.
So our responsibility in these times is not to know what's coming.
But simply for supporting ourselves to be as resourced and as calm and as open to whatever comes.
Then we will be able to deal with whatever comes next in the best way possible.
And this breath can help us to do that.
To know that the next moment,
Just like the next breath,
Will come.
So we focus on the one that's here.
And then the one that's here.
Now one way to help ourselves to be as calm and as resourced in positivity as possible is to become aware of things that we're grateful for.
To incline our minds towards gratitude away from overthinking,
Overwhelm,
Uncertainty.
And to hook it instead onto things that we can be certain of.
The things that we have that we are grateful for.
So I invite you now to drop that question in.
Almost as if you could pop it into the top of your head.
What am I grateful for right now?
Now that might be big things.
It might be your health.
The sun.
Nature.
It might be kind of medium sized things,
Technology.
Things that allow us to still connect with one another even in times like this.
Might be that you have food in your cupboards.
Or it might be the tiniest of things.
The taste of a good cup of coffee in the morning.
The warmth of this particular ray of sunshine on your skin as you sit in the window.
What am I grateful for right now?
Really see if you can perhaps bring something to mind.
Perhaps lots of things come up for you when you ask that question.
Or perhaps not.
Maybe choosing one or two of those things and really see if you can bring them to life in your mind.
Think about that thing,
That situation,
That resource.
Think about it.
And almost picture it really benefiting you.
What is it that you get from it?
Enjoyment,
Support,
Light relief.
Almost visualise yourself interacting with that thing.
Finding your mind of these positives,
No matter how small.
And we can leave it there and we can express that gratitude internally and benefit in our mind and in our bodies from the feeling and the thoughts that that positivity,
Practising positivity,
We can benefit from that.
But an invitation now is to consider who or what is behind the thing that you're grateful for?
Is there something to which you can actually express gratitude?
Perhaps after you finish this practice,
Sometime today,
Or perhaps just bear in mind over the next week?
There is power in sharing that gratitude,
Sharing that positivity.
And there is one final benefit to turning this appreciative gaze to something,
To inclining our mind to just thinking about what we appreciate.
And that is that even after this practice,
Your mind will be more inclined to continue to look for what falls into that appreciative gaze,
To seek out things that you're grateful for.
So this practice of gratitude is self-sustaining.
Being grateful can make us feel more positive.
If we share it with others,
It can make them feel more positive.
And it means that our mind is more likely to look for the positive.
So just for the last few moments of this practice,
Really bring to mind,
What am I grateful for right now?
Almost as if you can bask in it,
The reason that you're positive,
The reason that you're grateful,
The people or things that make this possible.
Revel in that positivity and know that you have the power to create it for yourself,
But also to pass that on to others.
Now,
Letting go of the reflection on gratitude and just noticing how that feels in your body and in your mind and in your feelings.
And then very gradually allowing your awareness to expand outside of your body.
Just becoming aware of the room around you,
The light,
The sounds.
And just as we draw this to a close,
Seeing whether you can set an intention to gently hold on to or bring with you any feelings of positivity and gratitude that you have cultivated during this practice.
See if you can make them last.
And I encourage you to do whatever you're going to do next.
