Meditation For Beginners — Step Six: Gratitude
The emotional energy of gratitude is free
Step 6 in the Beginner’s Guide To Meditation series.
Gratitude. Yeah gratitude. We’re going to work with gratitude in today’s meditation. Gratitude is free energy. It’s a feeling. Gratitude is a feeling beyond the way we typically experience emotions.
Gratitude can actually propel you forward and you can pull it out of anything, anywhere when you use it in the context of a meditation. It’s really, really, really valuable to cultivate a practice for a gratitude meditation.
We all struggle sometimes. Finding the way toward gratitude is what has given me the energy to get out of my moments of struggle. This meditation is not a time to face down those struggles, but to cultivate a skillset for finding gratitude when those moments do come.
Gratitude can be felt for the greatest days of your life or for people that have really meant something special for you in the past. You can also feel gratitude for something as tiny as noticing the sunlight in the steam over your cup of coffee or tea. You could just look out the window, see people going about their daily business, or you could just sit and feel a blanket or feel what it is to be in your body. Gratitude can come from the tiniest little thing.
When you transmute your relationship with something into one of gratitude it gives you energy. So, for six minutes, you’re going to have to sit with the invitation to find it. You’re going to have think of the different things that can give you gratitude. You might come up empty for a moment. That’s okay. That’s okay because what you’re doing in these meditations is strengthening muscles and skills.
A couple of prompts to maybe help you find some gratitude:
As cheesy as it sounds, put your hands on your heart for the meditation and feel your heart’s beat. That alone can be a source of gratitude. The fact that that thing is in there working for you constantly is kind of beautiful really. If you can just feel your heartbeat and connect with it and feel some gratitude for the work your heart is putting in for you, can feel gratitude for anything.
From there, you’re going to have a lot of time to kill in these six minutes. You can look around the room. You can find things. What memories come up when you see certain items, books, or photographs on your wall? When you go back to those memories, maybe you’ll notice that your heartbeat will change. Perhaps your heart will beat a little more excitedly. It’s in that heartbeat that the gifted energy of gratitude arises.
There is free energy stored up in the different rhythms that come from your past. There are different rhythms that come from the moments you want to call in from your future. There are different rhythms that come through when appreciating what’s around you right now.
This is for you to discover. Cultivate gratitude.
