Its my second day of focused meditation on Gratefulness, well, i’m not meditating on the subject of being grateful from a philosophical sense, rather, spending my meditation time training my brain to look for things to be grateful for in my day to day.
I really love gratefulness challenges, and gratefulness journaling for the way I feel afterward. Similar to the rush you feel after a really great workout, endorphins are high and you can’t help but think, why don’t I do this all the time!
But alas, life gets in the way, stresses and business take precedent and before you know it its been far too long since you’ve worked out all over again.
Dedicating this week to training my brain to be grateful, I’m hoping to walk away with some skills that help me DEFAULT to gratefulness and appreciation outside my meditation time. I’m doing some serious brain rewiring let me tell you. You’ve got no idea what a negative cycle your brain can be in until you try to jumpstart it into grateful mode.
I think a lot of my fault finding and worry really comes from a desire to optimize, to make things better and to always improve. For a long time I associated contentment with apathy, and so I hopped to the other side of the spectrum, fault finding and worry.
I’m noticing something special happening in my time in focused meditation on the things I’m grateful for. My fears about apathy really aren’t coming true, in fact, the appreciation is breeding excitement, energy and simple joy that so many things in my life are worth celebrating.
I really have no reason to be operating out of a mindset of lacking or deficit is motivating me to expand past the things I’m insecure about.
It feels like that strong steady base from which a zillion possibilities can springboard.
hellyes.
I was wrong, gratefulness and contentment doesn’t mean you give up. It means you’ve got the energy to keep going!
For today’s practice I wasn’t expecting much because I’ve had this terrible sharp sinus headache for most of the afternoon, but even so, I sat down, pressed play, closed my eyes and began breathing deeply.
Funny enough, this particular CALM meditation focused on a full body scan from head to toe, focusing on areas of the body which really show up, and serve us every single day, similar to what I was on about in yesterday’s post about my heart.
When I got to my arms and legs I was overwhelmed with thankfulness that I have extremities that help me take part in some of the things that make me so happy like yoga, and today’s activity — Swimming!
Once a week 
you can read more about my pisces preference to ABS (always be swimming) here ;)
In meditation I had the realization, that If God-forbid something awful happened to my body, and I wasn’t able to swim I’d be utterly heartbroken… It nearly brought me to tears what a silly jerk I’ve been criticizing the parts of my body that I don’t like when all along every time I ask my body to join me on the yoga mat or for a swim, it’s there for me. Even when it’s tired, even when it’s sore. Now THAT’s something to be grateful for….
Its been mentioned to me in the comments, and again in todays meditation that journaling the things you’re thankful for is a great way to train your brain to be more grateful every day, so in addition to these posts, that’s something I’m going to try to do at night before bed. I keep a little notebook close by, and I might have to set my phone to remind my sleepy end of the day brain, but I think it will be an awesome practice.
<3
Dayleeo
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If you’re meditating with me through the Month of march, feel free to use the hashtag #MeditationMarch and join us on Discord so we can share thoughts and encourage eachother. I’m already looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.
<3
Dayleeo
Not sure what #MeditationMarch is all about?
>> Check out this post for all the details! <<
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