Five Senses Gratitude Practice

This week, as we begin touching on this month's theme of Gratitude, I thought I'd bring it back to basics with this "five senses" practice. It's rather straightforward and is the kind of meditation you could even bring into your daily life as a mini-practice.

Warm wishes, and may your days be filled with gratitude-inspiring joy.

Transcript

Hey there everybody,

This is Kristen from Teaching Balance,

And I'm here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice We are now in the month focusing on gratitude of course in the month of November is Thanksgiving and it just feels very appropriate to Use that particular holiday as a springboard to explore all things gratitude related now There's lots of videos and practices that I've recorded on this topic before so you of course can always go and Revisit that in the library of practices,

And I've explored a few different elements of it just to give you like various highlights,

And I'll weave much of this in this month,

But Thinking about gratitude not as this sort of saccharine fake type of I Don't know feeling obligated to Feel gratitude almost being guilted into feeling gratitude.

I talked about that and that's something that I had struggled with the other thing that often comes up when we explore gratitude is the impact that it has on our perceptions of things and moving us slightly Towards being a little bit more optimistic and seeing the positives in life more a little more so than the negatives because we are biologically predisposed to Mentally focus on the problems and the negatives because that's what needs to be attended to and managed and As we work our way through all of this I thought that one sort of like nice general way to explore it is Through the five senses and so in a moment when we begin our practice together What I'm gonna do well,

Of course,

We're going to be meditating I'm also gonna be inviting you just to bring to mind various things in your life that feel that they you know are very worthy of generating gratitude around via the other your five sense doors So again,

Just one of those things to give us a little bit of a structure regarding exploring this theme And of course through the rest of the month,

We'll be exploring it in a variety of different ways So let's go ahead and just get started By the way,

If you are not feeling The whole gratitude thing and you just want to do your regular 10 minutes it of course You're welcome to do that.

You can turn down the volume.

You can set a timer I appreciate you being here and starting off with us,

But I know that some particular practices and approaches and Invitations each week resonate more so than others So I always want to give you that permission to do whatever feels right to you So if you are going to go ahead and try this gratitude practice,

I'm gonna set my timer for 10 minutes And Allowing yourself just to find that posture Whether you are seated With legs crossed or in a chair or perhaps even lying down Just allowing yourself to drop into your body And if you haven't already because this is how we always start Allowing yourself to take several long slow deep breaths I've been focusing a lot lately a lot lately on Nose breathing Primarily certainly for the inhale and also for the exhale But you do whatever feels right to you And if you're feeling a little escalated right now and deeper breathing feels a bit far-reaching then just doing whatever you can to slightly lengthen your inhale and exhale And slightly deepen your inhale and exhale And as we settle even further into this mindful presence and awareness I'm gonna invite you to drop even more fully into your body So really feeling what it feels like to be in your skin in this moment Particularly Below the chin not just being in your head,

But Really feeling your body And as you continue to ground yourself in your physical body Let's begin our five senses gratitude practice By reflecting on all the various Touch related Experiences that we have and that we can be grateful for can be as simple as The sense of relief when you have an itch and you can scratch it other experiences like Getting a massage Whether professionally or from a loved one And the sensations that that can evoke for us of pleasure and relief And even things like feeling gratitude and appreciation for What it feels like when you feel the Sun on your skin Getting into a hot shower You get the idea So let's sit in silence just for a little bit longer I'm gonna give you the space just to explore for you What touch related sensations you would like to Allow yourself to feel gratitude for and next when you're ready Exploring the sense door of taste Even in this moment as we sit together Experiencing that In our own way,

There's a taste experience even just as our tongue rests in our mouth If you've eaten something recently there might be even a lingering quality of taste Or if you just brushed your teeth or Had some water And of course a big part of this is bringing to mind all The delightful tastes that we've had the opportunity to enjoy Bringing to mind not only your favorite foods But also moments in your past where food and drink and Dining Played a role in a moment And allowing yourself to feel the gratitude for the moment itself and the role that taste played And enriching that moment And when you're ready releasing your attention on taste and moving to smell Noticing even in this moment are there any fragrances in the room smell of an HVAC system or Body products that we put on ourselves Or other ambient smells in the air And of course bringing to mind any beautiful smells we've had The opportunity to enjoy And just like taste thinking of moments thinking of our favorites And even though it's often Taking a backseat to other senses appreciating the sense of smell that we do have And then when you're ready Letting go of this appreciation for the smelling sense door And moving into hearing Even now you might notice a slight ring in your ears which occurs when we're in silence Most of us may immediately think of music Or the voices of loved ones and then lastly Expressing a gratitude for being able to see And if you care to you can even open your eyes and these last few moments of our practice and look around Allowing yourself just to appreciate The ability to see of course and to also think of all the beautiful things that you've seen in your life Nature cities People and even though our bell has rung just concluding by Having a moment to just appreciate all of it all the beauty That we have the opportunity to experience as we make our way in this world through our five senses Okay,

When the teeny tiny bit over there,

Sorry about that So just like I said at the beginning it's just a framework through which to Attend to various things to be appreciative of and for If that appealed to you you could do that anytime you could even do,

You know one each as you're walking to the bathroom at work or as you you know are driving in your car and Just going through like,

You know thinking about each of those five senses and what you might want to Allow yourself to generate some gratitude for in relationship to those So as always thank you so much for taking this time for yourself And thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey,

And I will see you next week.

Take care.

Bye