Hi,
Thank you for listening to my Insight Timer talk.
Today I'm going to speak to you about simple ways to increase your sense of gratitude.
So they're three really easy ways that will help you to become a little bit more mindful in your everyday life of being thankful for the things that you have.
So it's long been known that increasing our sense of gratitude has so many amazing effects.
It lets us feel more positive emotions.
It's thought to allow our immune system to be boosted and also it helps us deal with adversity.
Now the practices that I'm going to talk about can help increase our sense of contentment.
So in yoga we call that santosha,
Which is one of the niyamas or observances spoken about in the yoga sutras of Patanjali.
Quite an old text.
Being happy and grateful for what we have is a great way to transform our way of thinking and our way of feeling.
The first way that we can do this is that we can think about our everyday interactions.
So as children we're taught to say please and thank you and hopefully as adults we are still minding our Ps and Qs.
But are we doing it out of habit or do we really mean it?
For example if someone holds a door open for us or serves us in a shop we say thank you afterwards but is it genuinely heartfelt?
Now if we start to take a moment to really mean the thanks that we give in those everyday interactions we can find that little pop of gratitude multiple times a day rather than it just being a thoughtless utterance out of habit.
When we really mean our thanks the person receiving it can feel that honest appreciation.
And also expressing thanks in that way is great for the giver and the recipient.
So it's a really nice simple way.
Just pause and mean your thank yous that you say in everyday interaction.
The second way to increase our sense of gratitude is spoken about quite a lot but there are so many different ways of doing it and this is keeping a gratitude diary.
Now you may choose to write formally in a smart notebook or scribble on any piece of paper that's to hand or a way that is increasingly easy to do things is to make audio notes on your phone.
It's a really powerful way of drawing your attention to the things in your life that you're grateful for.
It's really simple and really effective.
All you need to do is before you go to sleep note at least three things that you're grateful for that have happened that day.
So they can be really simple like it was a sunny day or you had a really nice cup of tea.
If you try to find different things every day that's always good but you may find that some things make a regular appearance.
So my dog always features on mine because every day that he's with me I am grateful.
It's been noted by psychologists for such a long time such as Richard Wiseman that keeping track of things that you feel grateful for and make you feel lucky can actually help to rewire your brain.
Your neural networks get reprogrammed and this then allows you to notice more of the positive things in your life.
It actually improves your luck as if by magic.
The third method I'm going to speak to you about is using meditation to practice gratitude.
Meditation is a great way to enhance our sense of gratitude.
And whether we already have a practice or are new to meditation it's quite a simple effective way to make sure that we are focusing on the things that we feel grateful for.
So sitting with that sense of gratitude is really really valuable.
So an easy way to add gratitude to any meditation practice is to use the mantra I am grateful for and then add in your object of gratitude.
Now this allows us to change the object of our gratitude each time we sit.
And spending just five minutes with this mantra can really boost our sense of thanks and all the good things that come with that sense.
So you may want to try adding these quick and simple practices to your day to let that gratitude really flow by allowing our thanks in everyday interactions to be heartfelt,
Keeping a quick diary before we go to sleep and adding the mantra into our meditations.
You might start to feel luckier and truly appreciate all the good things in your life whether they be big or small.
Thank you so much for listening.
