John the TeAcHeR

Hampstead, MD, USA

Connie

Norwich, United Kingdom

Cristina

Connecticut, USA

You will explore gratitude by focusing on your breath and thanking your body, hands, rain, home, and breath for their essential roles in your life.

Gratitude

Gratitude Meditation

Secular

Relationships

Secular Mindfulness

Visualization

English

Gratitude is a powerful practice. When we train our minds to focus on what we are grateful for, we have a better experience in life because we are seeing life through the lens of what is good and what is working. What we focus on expands. When we are able to focus on all the things we have to be grateful for; we find we begin to attract even more to be grateful for. This practice utilizes our thought vibration by thinking of and listing areas of our lives that we can be grateful for.

Cultivating Gratitude With Thoughts

....... Come into a comfortable seat. If you're sitting on a chair, let your legs be uncrossed and your feet flat on the earth. If you're seated on a pillow or a cushion, let your legs be comfortably crossed or extended. Whatever is easeful, let your hands be comfortably resting on your lap. And feel your seat, that which is touching the chair or the cushion. Feel that connection. Feel a grounded quality in your seat. And then from that grounded quality, that solidity of your seat, begin to rise up a little bit, feeling your belly lift, feeling the center of the chest lift, feeling the roof of the mouth and the crown of the head lift. So there's a sense that your seat draws down into the earth and your crown lifts up into the heavens, creating space in between the bones of your spine. Bringing your attention to the heads of your arms, feeling those draw back in space, getting bright along the collarbone and the chest, feeling the shoulders draw down the back, feeling the upper back, relax and release. Feeling a softness in the jaw, relax your tongue. Feeling a softness in the cheeks and in the brows, relax and close your eyes. And begin to bring your attention to your breath. Letting this attention to your breath begin to train the mind to focus on a single point, feeling the breath in and the breath out. And breath in and the breath out. Noticing how the breath feels. Notice if it's even on the inhale or the exhale or not. Notice if the breath feels long and deep, more shorter and more shallow. There's no right or wrong. There's no good or bad. Just observe for yourself your breath in this moment here. Feeling this meditation, cultivate the awareness of how much there is to be grateful for. Little things often overlooked or taken for granted. People pay attention to and acknowledge and think. Take a moment and bring to mind your feet. Your feet which carry you as you walk on this earth. Thank your feet. Thank your feet for enabling you to walk in your life. For there are those who cannot walk. And if you are one cannot walk. Think of the mechanism that enables you to get around. Whether it's a wheelchair or a walker. Thank this object for transporting you in your life. For you are able to move because of it. And then bring to mind your hands. Your hands which enable you to write. Which pick up books and devices that enable you to learn and read and absorb information. These hands which touch and feel and feed you. Thank your hands. Take a brief moment and consider what it might be like to not have access to your hands. Thank your hands for all they do for you. And if you are one who does not have access to their hands. Think of those people or objects or technology that replace your hands. That enable you to eat. That enable you to learn and read. And thank those objects. And bring to mind the rain. Think of a rainy day while you are stuck inside pouring rain. Notice the mind wants to label the day a rainy miserable day. Thank this rain. For this rain cleanses the earth. Washes away pollution. Nourishes and feeds the plants, the trees, the flowers. Life on earth would not exist without rain. Take the rain. Bring to mind your home. No matter what kind of home it is. Bring to mind the roof over your head that keeps you dry from the rain. Thank this roof, this structure, this home. For it keeps you dry when it's raining. Home when it's cold. Take this roof over your head and this home that you have right now. Bring your attention to your breath. This breath that breathes in and out without you having to do anything. The breath that sustains your life in this body. For without this breath, there would be no life of this body. Thank this breath for sustaining this body. They thank you my breath for keeping me alive. Your mind often finds things to complain about or to worry about. This meditation helps us train the mind to look at things differently, to see how much there is to be grateful for and how much we have to be thankful for. And so I encourage you outside of this meditation practice to cultivate the practice of being grateful for all the little things that we often just take for granted. And so thank yourself for this time you've given yourself and will dedicate this time to all beings everywhere, whether big or small, near or far, seen or unseen. May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings everywhere be well. May all beings everywhere have peace in their hearts. Take a big breath in through the nose, a big breath out. Namaste.