“Gratitude & Glory”
Hello beautiful beings! I wanted to share with you a beautiful practice to help you shift your mood. You can use this at the start of your day to help create the mood for your day, to set your intention, to put yourself in a great frame of mind, feeling good.
It’s called Gratitude and Glory, and my coach Aurora, taught me this. I’ll share it now with a little bit of Heidi’s flavor in there.
The idea for Gratitude is to think of three things that you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for them. It can be something simple. It can be something extraordinary and it’s good to kind of mix it up.
I invite you when you’re thinking of something that you’re grateful for, to remember when it happened and feel into that time as if it’s happening right now.
This morning I was thinking I’m grateful for my dog Harley. She likes to sit beside me on my comfy chair where I have my morning routine. I was remembering a time she snuggled her nose underneath my thigh. I had my legs crossed and I was writing my journal. And so she snuggled her nose in there.
I felt into that moment as if it was happening right now. You can feel into whatever you’re thinking that you’re grateful for. Notice images, thoughts, emotions and body sensations of that experience.
I am feeling into Harley nuzzling under my thigh. The images – I look down and I can see her black and white face like half covered under my thigh. She’s a white dog with black ears and a black patch on her. My thought at the time was, “Oh my god, she’s so adorable.”
The emotion was just love, feeling connected with this gorgeous creature who brings me so much happiness.
The body sensation was, feeling her nose, pressing against my thigh as she dug in underneath and then feeling her really soft hair.
Why am I grateful for this? Because I feel such love from this beautiful little creature. That’s the gratitude side. A good morning practice is to think of three things that you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for them.
Next, the glory side is thinking about three of your accomplishments. I love this because, oftentimes we don’t give ourselves enough credit for what we do. We rush from one task to another and we don’t fully embody the things that we accomplish, we don’t really ground in them and enjoy them.
The glory is thinking of an accomplishment, closing your eyes and feeling into that accomplishment. Where you were, what was going on, what you saw, the thoughts going through your mind, the emotion, the body sensations.
Then asking yourself “What’s special about me? What traits or gifts do I have that enabled me to accomplish this task?”
For me, I was thinking of a simple one this morning. It was finishing my yoga practice when I didn’t want to do it. Going back to that moment at the end of yoga when I’m sitting there cross-legged. Feeling into that moment. I can see myself there in my blue wrap. The thought was, “Yay, I did it.”
The emotion was satisfaction, pleased with myself that I followed through. The body sensation at the end of my yoga practice was feeling spacious, openness in my body. I was a little more tight at the beginning, while at the end I was feeling spacious.
Next is thinking about what’s special about me, what traits or gifts do I have that helped me accomplish this goal? And when I’m thinking about my yoga practice, commitment comes to mind. I’ve made this commitment to myself to care for myself, to look after myself, to increase my capacity so that I can enjoy life more. When I’m looking after my body, I feel more alive, I feel vital. At the end of this yoga practice, I was feeling really spacious It is my commitment that is helping me enjoy more vitality in my life.
Compassion is another gift that I have that helped me to be successful with my yoga practice. It may sound strange to you, however, for myself, In my journey, I’ve been doing yoga on and off for many years, and when I started yoga, it was very painful for me, and I was very judgmental, of myself. Through the years, I have cultivated self-compassion. And so now, when I’m doing my yoga and I notice that I’m tight or something hurts or things aren’t going the way that I want, my heart is softer for myself. I have compassion now so that it doesn’t matter where I am on the spectrum of my yoga, it’s a practice.
Every day it’s different and I can love myself for where I am today. That compassion allows me to come and do yoga on a regular basis because when I was feeling judgmental about myself, you guessed it, I wasn’t doing yoga. Compassion is an important trait that I need in order to be successful in my yoga practice.
I invite you to try out Gratitude and Glory, a simple practice of feeling them in your body, and noticing what’s special about what you’re grateful for, and what’s special about you that empowered you to succeed.
These are simple practices that really get us in touch with who we are, and remembering what’s special about us, and what we enjoy in this life. Because what we focus on expands. When we’re putting our attention on what we’re grateful for, and what we’re good at, those are the things that we notice more and more of.
Wishing you a beautiful day.