Hi friends!
So, long time no see, huh? Yeah, about that...
What can I say? It's not that I haven't been grateful. As always, I have so many things to be grateful for. It's just, well, let's be honest here, it's just that I've been lazy. I've started a dozen or so journals over the years but have never stuck with journaling. I just don't love journaling.
I thought that a simple list of things I'm grateful for would be easy, and that putting it on the internet would keep me motivated, but apparently I can't even be shamed into keeping a tiny little public gratitude journal. So what's my problem?
I think I know. Take a look at Marie's video here & see if you understand:
http://www.marieforleo.com/2014/11/powerful-gratitude-practice/
Burnout, boredom, sounds about right. My lists looked like her first one--too general. So knowing that the beauty is in the details, how about if I try again? No promises. I'd love to make this a daily thing again, but if I don't succeed at that, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. As always, I invite you to join in the comments or on your own. I would LOVE to read what you're grateful for.
So without further ado (fun word, ado), here goes. Today I choose to express gratitude for meditation, and specifically for a meditation that I've used the past two days. You may want to use it too, so I'll explain.
Lately I feel like my head is swimming...all of the time. I have a million thoughts swirling around & feel unable to concentrate. I've meditated from time to time over the last several years but never stuck with it (are we seeing a pattern here?), but every single thing I read on meditation makes me think I should do it, so I have decided to do it daily. I started about a week ago with 20 minutes at a time, and to begin, I thought that instead of trying not to have any thoughts, I would start with a meditation to clean out my thoughts and choose the ones I want.
So for the first few days I would start with a few deep, cleansing breaths, then I would focus on words like peace, love, kindness, generosity, etc. It was great.
Then, two days ago, I sat down to begin my meditation, and as I started, I saw all of the thoughts swirling around in my head. With each breath in, they swirled around, and with each breath out, I saw them shooting out through my nose. I repeated the breathing, swirling, shooting until I had emptied all of them, and when I did, I saw my mind as clean and shiny and kind of light blue. It made me smile. For a few breaths, I just enjoyed my clean, shiny, light blue mind. It was calming. After a while, I started choosing my thoughts. I started with peace and let it come into my shiny, clean, light blue mind. It was beautiful and white, and it filled the space. I felt myself smiling. After a few breaths just feeling peace, I let love come in. Love was pink and white and fluffy. Now my mind was filled with peace and love, and I sat with that for a few breaths, still smiling. Then I let in warmth. Warmth was soft and light brown and cream colored. Warmth felt so good. I sat with peace, love, and warmth for a bit, and it was beautiful. Even now typing this, I feel relaxed and am smiling.
Then, all of a sudden, a piece of roquette flew in! I must have been hungry and realized in that moment that there was salad in my fridge, and that roquette just flew right into my beautiful shiny, clean, light blue mind filled with peace, love, and warmth. Laughter followed on the tails of the roquette, and I was literally laughing out loud. Peace, love, and warmth hugged the roquette then showed it to the door. Laughter, which was bright blue, hung around, and for the next few breaths, I concentrated on peace, love, warmth, and laughter.
I sat for several breaths smiling and enjoying my trouble-free mind, and beauty came in. Beauty was soft and pink and swirly and was there because where peace, love, warmth, and laughter are, beauty is also. When the little bells tinkled to tell me my 20 minutes were up, I felt warm, happy, and peaceful.
The next day, I repeated the same meditation, and afterward, felt joyful. Today when I meditate, once I've emptied the other thoughts, I'm going to focus on the sensations of peace, love, warmth, laughter, and beauty--really feeling them.
So today, I am immensely grateful for this beautiful, joy-inducing meditation. :)
bisous
