Today I will talk about Gratitude. What Is Gratitude Meditation? First a quote:
“Go within every day and find the inner strength; so that the world will not blow your candle out.”
From Katherine Dunham,
an African‐American dancer,
choreographer, author, educator,
anthropologist, and social activist.
The simplest form of meditation is breath watching, where we focus on our breathing. We consciously notice each inhale and exhale and bring our awareness to the breath, observing the moment. Research suggests that since our brains are creative and crave for expressing themselves, giving it the space to cultivate its power and focus on nothing but itself can calm the storms of thought inside.
Gratitude meditation is a conscious effort to appreciate what makes us feel good. It is tied in with opening our hearts and embracing the blessings we have. Many Buddhist monks and nuns actively practice gratitude meditation at the beginning and end of their days, and pay tribute to everything that helped them survive that day, including their sufferings.
Gratitude meditation is ancient – both in the spiritual and the non‐ spiritual forms. Unlike conventional meditation practices that need physical arrangements like posture, illumination, or sound, gratitude meditation is more flexible and can be practiced in a variety of settings for a short or long duration.
Gratitude meditation gives you the power to face your weaknesses and acknowledge the darker sides of life. It guides you to accept them, learn from them, and grow with them. And here is what we get from practicing it.
We are happy
Gratitude meditation brings feelings of heightened positivity and a happiness that lasts. The peace that we derive from being grateful in the meditation session gives us the power to realize that happiness does not lie in momentary pleasures and that we cannot be happy if we equate it with mundane gains and profits.
Materialism is one of the roots of unhappiness, as many have suggested, and a way to not let it overpower you is by practicing and internalizing gratefulness and mindful awareness. For example, having an ice cream can make you feel good right now. But when you buy your kid his favorite frozen cup and see him relishing it, isn’t that joy deeper?
We become socially aware and better with our relationships
Gratitude meditation improves social relationships and helps in sustaining them for a lifetime.
In a study on the relationship between gratitude and the quality of life, it was found that participants who scored high on gratitude had better social functioning and were great listeners.
Gratitude was also found to impact all the five traits of the Big Five Theory of Personality, from the acronym OCEAN for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neutroticism.
All participants, no matter what personality traits dominated them, showed similar levels of satisfaction when they practiced gratitude exercises.
We have better health
As we feel more grateful and content in our daily lives, normal body mechanisms like the sleep‐wake cycle improve. Research has shown that gratitude meditation is directly associated with subjective feelings of better and longer sleep.
It also shields us against stress by helping us look into the problems with a calm mind and resolve them efficiently, instead of reacting to them adversely.
Gratitude improves our immune system. Practitioners of gratitude are more optimistic. Research with older adults found that a positive attitude can improve your immune system and may help you live longer,
I often take a moment to notice and remember how blessed is my life, and how grateful I am for all these blessings.
VIDEO: 15 MINUTE GUIDED MEDITATION: CULTIVATE AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE BY THE MINDFUL MOVEMENT