Welcome to your gratitude for all the things meditation.
I'm your guide Terry Cole.
Please find a comfortable place where you can sit or lie down now for the next 10 to 15 minutes.
You might want to set up a little Zen Den,
A sacred place for your meditation and mindfulness practices.
Get a candle,
Get some essential oil and maybe grab a soft cozy throw blanket if you need one.
Please put your phone on airplane mode.
Hang up the do not disturb sign and let's begin.
If you have essential oil,
You can put a few drops in the palm of your hand and rub them together or put it on a tissue and take a nice long slow deep breath in through your nose and allow that aroma to completely and totally relax your body.
Take another deep breath and visualize your heart and your mind slowly opening.
Now gently close your eyes and drop your attention inward.
Start by taking another long slow deep breath in through your nose and release.
Let's do that again.
Long slow deep breath in and just effortlessly let it go.
On every inhalation visualize yourself inhaling the peaceful positive energy that's all around you and with every exhalation see yourself releasing any constriction,
Any fatigue,
Any anxiety,
Any physical pain or anything that is not serving your greatest good right now.
Now you can allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm and we're going to do a quick body scan to locate anything physical pain constriction that might need your attention right now.
During the scan if you notice any constriction or pain in any part of your body or in your mind I want you to stop focus your attention on it and breathe deeply into that area and then visualize the pain or constriction leaving your body with your breath.
Let's start at the top of the head slowly scanning your mind moving down to your face down the back of your neck your shoulders all the way down your arms your hands and your fingers.
Remember to stop and release any constriction pain or fatigue that you notice.
Keep scanning all the way down your back to your buttocks moving down the entire front of your torso as well scan from your hips down to your thighs and your knees all the way down to your calves your ankles your feet and your toes.
Continue with this process until you've scanned your entire body and you're feeling fully relaxed and peaceful.
Now I want you to think about something in your life that you are really grateful for.
Where do you feel that gratitude in your body?
Start to get familiar with how gratitude shows up in your body physically.
You have a thought about something you're grateful for and it actually produces a response in your body.
So with this meditation we're going to be bringing our awareness to all of the things in life that we have to be grateful for.
Let's slowly go through all the aspects of your life because in every part of your life there are many many many things to be grateful for.
Let's start with awareness for your breath as you inhale and as you exhale and the fact that each of these breaths gives you life without you doing one thing.
Let's move our attention now to your heart.
Your heart that's beating,
Pulsing,
Filling with love and compassion and peace and flowing that out into the world.
Let's bring your awareness to your eyes.
These beautiful eyes that allow you to see the magnificence of the world around you.
Bases of those that you love.
Flowers,
Nature,
The ocean,
Sunsets,
The sky.
Your pets and your own beautiful face in the mirror.
Bring your awareness to your ears.
Ears that allow you to experience music,
Laughter,
A baby giggling,
The voices of your loved ones,
Silence and all of the many sounds of life.
Bring your awareness to your nose,
Your ability to smell brewing coffee,
An ocean breeze,
The aroma of a forest,
Flowers,
Trees,
Newly cut grass,
The delicious smell that comes from the kitchen,
A new puppy smell or something sweet baking in the oven.
Bring your awareness to your mouth and your lips.
This amazing ability for you to taste and savor and kiss and whisper and sing and speak your truth into the world.
Bring your awareness to your hands.
Your hands that hold and touch and caress and applaud the arms and shoulders that carry,
Hug,
Lift,
Stretch.
What about your feet and toes?
Just the ability to wiggle them as they transport you everywhere that you want to go.
They allow you to walk,
Run,
Dance,
Leap.
Bring your awareness to the resiliency within you,
Your ability to survive and thrive after pain,
Loss,
Trauma and suffering.
Give yourself a moment to be awed by the strength of your own human spirit.
Now bring your awareness to your abundance,
Your expansion,
Your ability to evolve,
To change your mind,
To see something differently,
Your ability to have empathy and sympathy for yourself and for others,
The light and the love that resides within you,
Your ability to see your own growth,
To work towards your own potential.
Think of the daily things in your life,
The moments that bring you joy.
Is it your morning coffee?
Do you love to get up early before everyone else and have the house to yourself?
You take a daily walk.
It is not just the big gratitude that change our lives.
It is the everyday small gratitude that we recognize on a regular basis that can change the neuroplasticity in your mind,
That will change the way you feel in your body.
You have a choice about what you focus your powerful attention on.
Choose gratitude every day,
All day,
Because there will always be things for us to be upset about,
For us to complain about.
Bad things will always be happening in the world,
But good things are also always happening.
And where you focus your attention,
That is where the energy in your life will flow.
This is not to say we avoid problems.
This is not hyper positivity.
Gratitude is probably one of the most important skills that you can hone in this lifetime that will give you the biggest bang for your buck.
Gratitude exercises can be as simple as writing notes,
Complimenting ourselves and others,
Smiling more at others in our lives,
Simply appreciating nature,
Or making gratitude visits or Zoom calls or phone calls or text messages to the people in our lives who have supported us and whose support has changed our lives.
We heal by expressing our gratefulness to others and to ourselves.
Living in gratitude,
It's not simply an exercise.
It is actually a way of life.
It's a way of flowing through the world with more ease,
More grace,
And more love.
It is available to you at any moment in time.
It is always appropriate to find something to be grateful for that's real.
This will change your life.
There is nothing else.
And now it's time to come back.
So I'm going to count backwards from 10.
10,
9,
You're feeling rested and relaxed.
8,
7,
Feeling incredibly grateful.
6,
5,
Feeling uplifted and joyful.
4,
3,
Feeling ready to live each day in gratitude.
2,
1.
And now slowly and gently bring your awareness back to your body,
Back to the room that you're in.
You can gently stretch your hands and rock your feet and give yourself a full body stretch.
Please do this meditation as often as you wish and as always,
Take care of you.
