Who or what do you appreciate most in your life right now?
So mush of our life is spent wanting to be somewhere else,
perhaps to be doing something else,
or maybe even to be with someone else
that we miss what’s going on in this moment right now.
There’s a lot to think about.
Our work, our families, hopes, dreams, fears.
We forget that pausing is really a way to appreciate the preciousness of human life.
You know, when you directly experience that feeling of what it means to be alive…
..you feel genuinely grateful, if only for a moment.
These are the things that we can so easily take for granted when we’re caught up our everyday life.
Alway chasing after the future, always looking back to the past, and not appreciating that a mind,
that may admittedly be troublesome at time, has the potential to be both happy and healthy.
So in this episode, we’ll be exploring gratitude
and learning, through appreciation, how to fall in love with life again.
Hi, I’m Andy, and welcome to Headspace Guide to Meditation.
So many years ago, I used work in a clinic where I’d se people one-to-one.
They’d come to learn meditation
or to try and help manage certain things that were going on in their life.
And there was one occasion where this clap came along,
and he was primarily there because he felt very sort of stressed in his life.
There was a lot going on.
He had a very restless mind.
And we were doing an exercise, a little bit similar to the one that we’re gonna do today,
around appreciation and gratefulness.
And going into this exercise, I asked him a question.
And that was,
“Who or What do you appreciate most in your life right now?”
And at the end of the exercise, he looked sort of visibly moved
and a yet little uncomfortable.
And I didn’t ask, but he offered, and he said,
“Hey, do you mind if I share with you kind of what came up during the exercise?”
And I said, “Sure. You don’t have to. It’s for you. It’s not for me.”
And he said, “Yeah, but I feel a bit guilty,”
And I said, “Sure, so tell me,” you know?
And he said, “Well, look, my life is– I’m very fortunate.
You know, I have… have a business. I have a wonderful family.
I have beautiful young children. I have so many good things in my life,
but when I asked myself that question,
the thing that came up in my mind was my morning cup of coffee.”
He said, “It makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable.”
And we dug into that a little bit.
And as he talked about what that represented in his day,
that moment in the day where he had all of those things in his life
that he enjoyed and was grateful for,
it was a moment of quiet, of stillness.
You know, he talked about how the coffee smelled, the ritual of making it.
There was something sort of deeply peaceful about that moment.
It was almost like a meditation in itself.
And the truth is we all have these moments throughout the day.
Opportunities where we can truly be more present to feel
a greater sense of appreciation in our life.
So, when it comes to feeling more grateful in our life,
when it comes to actually falling in love with life again,
there are different ways of coming at it.
One way is to begin with the thinking mind,
and by that I mean to consider,
to think about the things that are going well in your life.
It might be something that happens on a daily basis.
It might be your physical health.
It might be the people around you.
It might be the environment or the place that we live in.
There are so many different ways that we can find areas of our life
that are actually working well.
The tricky thing, when thinking about it, is that it doesn’t necessarily connect
to the story that we have in our mind,
with that place within ourselves where that feeling of appreciation,
that feeling of gratefulness lives.
And we’ve all experienced that before,
or we’ve had that moment there, for whatever reason,
something or someone has touched us in a way
that just allows us to experience that feeling of appreciation.
So we need to create a space for that.
In fact, when I think back to the monastery,
and reflecting on the precious nature of life
is one of the very first things that you do when you get to the monastery.
You’re encouraged, first thing in the morning,
rather jumping out of bed, to sit up in bed
and to take 20, 30 seconds just to pause
and be grateful that you have woken up in the morning.
Before every meal in the day, to pause just for 10, 20, 30 seconds,
just to consider where the food’s come from,
and to be grateful that it’s sitting in front of you.
When you’re with someone else,
rather than thinking about what’s going on in your own life,
actually being present with that other person,
appreciating time with that other person.
So there are so many different opportunities in the day
to tap into the feeling of appreciation.
As long as we know where they are and how to look after them,
then life starts to look and feel very different, very quickly.
And that’s essentially what we’re gonna be doing together today
in this technique that I’m gonna guide you through.
It’s called “reflection,” and it’s one of my favorites
for tapping into that feeling of appreciation in our llife.
It’s an unusual meditation technique but really effective.
So in many way, you need to do it, really, to get a feeling of it.
But just to give you a hands-up, the practice of reflective meditation
is really a way of creating space in the mind where we can choose
a question or a topic of contemplation and focus our attention upon it.
And, of course, when our attention wanders to other throughs,
we simply return again to our chosen topic.
Now, the intention of the reflection technique
is to encourage a quiet, clear space in the mind
into witch we can then drop a question.
It’s not about trying to answer the question.
We don’t want to be in our usual, everyday thinking
where we try to solve the problem.
Instead, we just want to observe what’s happening
when we drop that question in.
Curious to see what bubbles up to the surface…
…whether that’s a through, a feeling
or even a physical sensation.
Sometimes the result may seem related to the question,
at other time, not at all.
That’s why it’s good to frame the question in the second person and to ask,
“What do you think?” instead of, “What do I think?”
When we do this, the exercise becomes less conceptual.
The mind’s a little more open and naturally curious.
And, hey, maybe we just sit there and laugh.
or cry or do both.
The true is, it doesn’t matter.
These’s no right or wrong answer.
It’s about learning to listen to the mind,
to be curious, to be interested.
To understand that it’s about the journey rather than the destination.
So the origins of the reflection technique
come from a set of foundational techniques in the Tibetan practice
that date back nearly thousand years.
It’s typically the very first thing a novice does when entering the monastery,
spending perhaps a week or even a month just reflecting on this one question
centered around the appreciation of this precious human life.
The intention is to create an environment where we touch the emotion
rather than just touch the thought,
ensuring that we’re actually grateful for life,
to the extent that it becomes precious
and positive while we’re alive.
So, why is it so important that we do feel
a sense of gratefulness in our life?
Well, it’s not just a nice idea.
Science has shown that it actually contributes
to our sense of happiness
and our sense of overall well-being
and how it can actually make us feel different in our life.
In one particular study,
they asked participants at the end of each day just to consider
three things in their lives that they’re grateful for.
And in writing those things down, in reflecting on those positive things,
they’ve essentially discovered
that taking the time to do this on a regular basis
not only helps people fell better in the moment
but also allows them to feel happier in their everyday life.
So the results of this study essentially mean that if we can find a way
of introducing that greater sense of gratitude
at any time in our day,
it cab significantly improve happiness
and help us learn to fall in love with life again.
So now it’s time to take a few minutes to put all of this together
as I guide you thought the meditation.
So, as always, make sure that you are sitting comfortably, lying comfortably.
Remember, the only thing that’s important is that your back is fairly straight.
Other than that, just make yourself comfortable.
A few reminders to help you to get the best out of the exercise.
Remember, it’s natural for the mind to wonder,
so just allow thoughts come an go.
Remember, doesn’t need a lot of effort.
This is the one time in the day when you can truly let go
and just allow the body and mind to unwind.
And finally, with this specific technique,
it doesn’t matter what arises when you ask the question.
Try to avoid the temptation to think about it,
to judge it or analyze it.
Just allow it to have its own time, its own moment.
And don’t worry if it doesn’t even lead to a feeling of appreciation.
Like all meditation exercise, it takes a little bit of time
and a little bit of practice sometimes.
But right now, all you need to do
is to begin with your eyes open.
A nice, soft focus. Just aware of the space around you.
And just maintaining that soft focus with the eyes,
just taking a couple of big, deep breaths.
Breathing in though the nose…
…and out though the mouth.
So as you breathe in though the nose
it’s the sense of the lungs expanding, the body filling with air.
As you breathe out,
just noticing how the muscles in the body begin to soften as you exhale.
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