Energy Medicine for Gratitude
Do You Want to Feel a Greater Sense of Gratitude in Your Life?
Trace 9 Hearts – Focus on your breathing as you set your intention to Infinite Love and Gratitude. You will trace three sets of hearts with three hearts in each set. Each time expanding your awareness of Love and Gratitude as your hearts become larger you will send your intention out into the Universe. Begin between your eyebrows and with both hands trace a heart around your face to your chin. Repeat twice. Now begin between your breasts and trace a big heart around your breasts ending below your navel. Repeat twice. Next begin at the middle of your forehead and trace a big heart up and around your body bringing it down to your toes. Repeat twice.
Zip Up – Trace along the front mid-line of your body from the pubic bone to your chin and lock it in as if you are turning a key while you focus on Gratitude. You can also Zip Up as you repeat an affirmation. Using one of the following or your own, Zip Up and repeat several times. “The more Grateful I am, the more reasons I find to be Grateful.” “I am filled with the Love of the Universal Divine Truth.” “I breathe in Peace, Love and Gratitude.” “I radiate Joy and Gratitude and from this vibration everything else I desire flows easily to me.”
Cultivating Gratitude – Overview
Gratitude is defined in wikipedia as “a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.” We know that the Energy of Gratitude is extremely powerful and ultimately transforming. It is this energy that brings abundance to us and frees us from becoming lost in negativity. We each have a vibrational frequency of gratitude that eminates from our being. The power of the gratitude vibration is based on how well we are staying within that frequency. An “attitude of gratitude,” is easy to detect. It shows up as a smile, welcoming hello, positive and uplifting words, a confident posture and of course an overall vibration of loving kindness. Joseph Goldstein, in his book, One Dharma, wrote “when we feel true gratitude, whether toward particular people or toward life, loving kindness will flow from us naturally. When we connect with another person through gratitude, the barriers that separate begin to melt.”
Feel how Melody Beattie’s words captures the essence of Gratitude: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
A Meditation on Gratitude and Joy
by Jack Kornfield www.JackKornfield.org
With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures if the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day. With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations if elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the safety and well-being I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the blessings of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.
Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others. Now shift your practice to the cultivation of joy. Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, happiness and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:
May you be joyful.
May your happiness increase.
May you not be separated from great happiness.
May your good fortune and the causes if your joy and happiness increase.
Sense the sympathetic joy and caring in each phrase. When you feel some degree of natural gratitude for the joy and well-being of this loved one, extend this practice to another person you care about. Recite the same simple phrases that express your heart’s intention. Then gradually open the meditation to other loved ones and benefactors. After the joy for them grows strong, turn back to include yourself. Let the feelings of joy more fully fill your body and mind. Continue repeating the intentions of joy over and over, through whatever resistances and difficulties arise, until you feel stabilized in joy. Next begin to systematically include the categories of neutral people, then difficult people and even enemies until you extend sympathetic joy to all beings everywhere, young and old, near and far. “Practice dwelling in joy until the deliberate effort of practice drops away and the intentions of joy blend into the natural joy of your own wise heart.”
Making a Gratitude Adjustment
- Start your day with the intention of gratitude.
- On a daily basis, write down all that you are grateful for.
- Be Present in the moment and notice all that you have.
- Let go of grievances so gratitude has a greater space to grow
- When you do things for others, do it with love in your heart.
- Be grateful for everything, even the difficult things as they may be the very things that transform your life.