(Free guided meditation below).
“Everyday be grateful that you do not have a toothache.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Cultivate gratitude by sharing what you are grateful for this year on our Gratitude Inventory below!
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it gives me a chance to cultivate one of the healthiest mindsets: Gratitude.
Luckily though, it is a mindset that can be cultivated. With practice, you can grow your capacity to experience gratitude and thus experience all the goodies that come along with it.
In honor of this week of Thanksgiving and to help you practice gratitude, I created a free guided meditation: Thanks-Growing Meditation.
Re-Balance Your Awareness Towards Goodness
This guided meditation is an opportunity to re-balance your awareness; it will help you counteract your mind’s natural tendency to over-focus on the problems or difficulties in your life.
Importantly, a gratitude meditation is not about forcing yourself to feel any particular emotion. It is about being curious about what you experience in your body, mind, and spirit when you intentionally direct your awareness towards the positive.
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Practice Gratitude with Our Guided Thanks-Growing Meditation
In this short “Thanks-Growing” meditation, you will call to mind some of the goodness in your life as you repeat these phrases, linking them to the flow of your breath:
I know there is goodness in my life. (Breathing in)
May others know goodness in their lives. (Breathing out)
If you are willing, put a slight smile on your face as you repeat these phrases :-). OK, I know that sounds goofy, but try to suspend your judgment about the intentional smile. There is excellent research on the physiology of emotions that explains why smiling shifts your energy and mood. Try it and see what you notice.
Find a comfortable place to sit or stand, and then begin this short guided meditation:
Use this free guided meditation to grow your gratitude.
Just for fun, practice this meditation each day over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Maybe for the rest of the year you could even make it a habit to end each day with a few minutes of gratitude meditation.
Or, you can make a game out of your gratitude practice. When my daughter was young, we’d play the Gratitude Alphabet game. Starting with “A,” we’d go through each letter of the alphabet, thinking of something we were grateful for that started with that letter. Sometimes we’d get pretty wacky as we stretched our imagination to come up with a gratitude for every letter.
However you decide to cultivate your capacity for gratitude, pay attention to any shifts in energy or attitude that develop as your awareness of goodness grows.
Add Your Gratitude to Our Inventory
Help us start a Thanksgiving Gratitude Inventory. Please share your gratitudes below . List as many as you like. Let’s see how many we can collect!
If everybody who reads this post contributes one gratitude, we’ll have hundreds of them!
(Just like smiling, writing down what you are grateful for will improve your mood!)
I’ll start: I’m grateful that there are so many people like you in the world, taking the time to reflect on what is good and beautiful in this miraculous life!
May you all experience a peaceful Thanksgiving.
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
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I am grateful I get to spend this holiday with people who make me laugh, and that I’m lucky enough to have an immensely supportive and loving family.
I am grateful for my grandparents and their dreams.
I am grateful that their dreams live in my family and in me.
I am grateful for awareness, and the choice in how I see events.
I am grateful for those who challenge my faith in the world, and those who affirm my ability to shape the world.
I am grateful for the Koru community and the power of love.
I am grateful because We are extending gratitude to the world.
Happy Holidays from the Turkey Table
I’m grateful for the gift of mindful meditation and the ability that it brings, to see what is good and beautiful in my life. This is something I can see daily, not needing the holiday to bring that glorious smile to my face!
Gratitude for myfriend Bob who sent this meditation, my mom Peggy Gayle who just passed, happy healthy families, our shared world, sharing gratitude.
I am grateful for enjoying the support and company of this wonderful Koru Mindfulness community (and this in despite of the distance and time differences!)
I am grateful for learning everyday something new in each meditation, in each smile, in each tear shared…
I am grateful for being able to share this with students
I am grateful for life itself, beautiful, plentiful, finite…
I am grateful for being able to welcome challenges and view them as opportunities. I am grateful for my new jobs at very supportive environment, for all my friends and pets. I am grateful for accepting things the way how they are and for facing difficulties and being more assertive, therefore less anxious. I am grateful for learning from my mistakes. I am grateful for many people in my life who are inspiring me. I am grateful for finding time for myself. I am grateful for feeling the cold breeze on my face during my morning walks. I am grateful for smiling and laughing every day. I am grateful for being able to help others and have a purpose in life. I am grateful for enjoying simplest things in life, practicing mindfulness, and living my live more often in the present moment and feeling happier.
I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with those that inspire and challenge me to nurture my passion and skills.
I’m grateful to live in a space that is open, accepting, and supportive.
I’m grateful for the gift of each new day and to be able to feel the winter wind on my face and see the display of colors changing outside each morning.
I’m grateful for homemade banana bread for being a delicious and comforting way to end my day 😋
I am grateful to be in the midst of a fabulous Koru Center team, our students and our Koru Teacher Community. Oh, and I am grateful today for the chance to rake leaves. I love raking leaves on a beautiful fall day!
I’m grateful for the opportunity to homeschool my children.
I’m grateful for my wonderful community of friends that show up with love and compassion for each other, even when we are not our best.