This is my serious attempt to clean out my email box from my hospital stay. My emails have a lot of great knowledge from people. I’ve been holding out on all the information in my email. I want to keep the knowledge and clean my inbox. So I came up with the idea to write a blog post on these emails. Done and done.
Whether you choose to express gratitude in the morning or the evening, the benefits are endless…
— Feel immune to the negative charges of anger and frustration
— Open your heart and mind to embrace compassion
— Start your day with positive and loving emotions
— Melt the stresses of the day with ease
— Relax your mind into a state of blissful peace
— And so much more
Gratitude is the thing that can make you 25% happier (and that’s a rough estimate). Gratitude makes you immune to anger, disappointment and frustration. It makes “failure” feel okay; and it’s even been shown to heal pain and illness in your body.
That one thing is GRATITUDE — and amazing things happen when you integrate it into your meditation practice.
If you do a morning gratitude meditation, this will help you open your mind and heart to embrace compassion and start the day off with positive and loving feelings. A morning meditation helps you imprint “the right thoughts” into your mind, before the day’s mental chatter has begun.
If you do an evening gratitude meditation, it can balance your mind and bring you down from a frenetic pace to a blissful state of peace. This is a fantastic way to end the day on a positive note. As you feel your mental chatter slow down and you infuse your being with a feeling of gratitude, stress melts away, you shrug the day’s burdens off your shoulders.
You can do a morning or an evening gratitude meditation, alternate them, or do both. You can’t get enough gratitude!
Gratitude Exercise
- As you sit down to meditate, breathe in deeply. Silently or aloud, say, “Thank you.” Repeat a few times, allowing the feeling of gratitude to come over you.
- Then, think about at least five specific things you are grateful for on this day. It can be something as simple as a warming cup of coffee you enjoyed; something as big as having a loving partner; and don’t forget to be grateful for your struggles and difficulties, too. Challenge yourself to think about something to be grateful for in a difficulty you’re facing, for example financial struggles. What has this situation taught you? How has it enriched your life?
- Now thank the people behind these situations. Whoever was part of your day, thank them and bless them — especially those who made your life difficult. Thank the people who annoyed you, irritated you, hurt your or rejected you, if there were any. Their actions can serve as powerful teachers for you, in teaching you to be more compassionate and understanding, or perhaps more patient and less self-absorbed. Whether you see it immediately or not, these people are enriching your life!
Give thanks from the bottom of your heart. Remind yourself how blessed you are and whenever your mind tries to argue by saying “yeah, but…” just pick something else to be grateful for! Remind yourself what a wonderful teacher life is, if you are open to its lessons!
Whatever you focus on, expands. When you focus on gratitude and positivity, you will get more of that in return. Be mindful that you will attract more abundance, love and health by being grateful for your current state in these areas.
And even beyond that, gratitude feels good. There’s no need to stop at naming five things and people to be grateful for. You can keep going for as long as you like. As you do this exercise, you’ll feel happier and happier until you feel like your happiness wants to burst forth from the core of your being!
Hello! I’m Alesha! I’m a musician, actress, entrepreneur and writer and recent hospital patient (I still can’t believe that is real).Follow on Twitter. Let me know what you want me to write! Click here! I’m writing for Thrive Global, who’s mission is to change the way we work and live. As stated by Arianna Huffington, for far too long, we have been operating under a collective delusion that burning out is the necessary price for achieving success. This could be less true. All the latest science is conclusive that, in fact, not only is there no trade-off between living a well-rounded life and high performance, but performance is actually improved when we prioritize our health and well-being. It’s time to move from knowing what to do to actually doing it. With Thrive Global leading the way, I’m confident that we can have a mindset change on work-life balance. If you like what I’m writing, give me a heart and share! 🙂
Image courtesy of Adrian Owen/Unsplash
Originally published at medium.com