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How to Practice Gratitude
Hey friends, if you are listening to this while doing your traveling for the holidays - safe travels loves! Today we are talking about how to practice gratitude.
Gratitude is a practice that turns meals in to feasts and houses into homes. It is a healing practice that is best repeated daily but this time of year is a beautiful time energetically and spiritually to start a gratitude practice regardless of if you have had one in the past.
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How to Practice Gratitdue
Rough Transcript (listening is best)
How to Practice Gratitude Introduction
Hey friends, if you are listening to this while doing your traveling for the holidays - safe travels loves! Today we are talking about how to practice gratitude.
Gratitude is a practice that turns meals in to feasts and houses into homes. It is a healing practice that is best repeated daily but this time of year is a beautiful time energetically and spiritually to start a gratitude practice regardless of if you have had one in the past.
Intro
Welcome if this is your first time listening - I’m Audrey Christie - I’m a functional and integrative nurse nutritionist and energy medicine practitioner. I help women start their very own Autoimmune Revolution so you can stop chasing symptoms and learn how to heal your body from autoimmune disease.
So here's the thing, being grateful having gratitude practicing gratitude thanking the Creator for everything that shows up in our reality, and that means the good and the bad, opens up a Healing Center in our bodies that raises our vibration and it can even raise our vibration to a level where pain and suffering simply don't exist.
You might be thinking Lord Audrey is going all off and the woo-woo today. And you know I love my fair share of Wu, but my Wu is backed in science. Research demonstrates that focusing on gratitude, on what we are grateful for, opens up a feeling and emotion that is happier that is more fulfilled. Studies have shown us That gratitude directly impacts greater happiness, Better Health, few are aches and pains, more focus, alertness, and determination, better sleep, and improved self-esteem. And that these things actually lead to more optimism, new and lasting relationships, progress towards personal goals, and increased generosity and empathy. It is a circle that keeps on giving.
How I Practice Gratitude and the Impact
Gratitude is not something that I take lightly. I have had a gratitude practice for over a decade now and I can simply say that it is life-changing. There is absolutely no downside and practicing gratitude can be as simple or as complex as you'd like. My gratitude practice started with simply journaling 3 to 10 things that I was thankful for each day. and still when I find my default gratitude level wavering, it is a practice that I go back to and still create my list every day.
Even though gratitude is a very simple practice, it does take practice to have gratitude as your default mode. Often people have trouble feeling grateful because it is difficult to acknowledge what we have. Sometimes this difficulty is based on taking things for granted and sometimes this difficulty is based in being so busy that we can't slow down enough to be present and aware of what is making us happy.
Sometimes it's difficult to feel grateful because it reminds us of less happy times and causes concern that we might fall back into less happy times of more pain more suffering be it physical or emotional. At an energetic level or an emotional level, you could even call it subconsciously reminding us of less happy times can remind us of what was lacking in our past and awaken these feelings again. It's not always comfortable and can cause us to feel unworthy of all we have or have accomplished.
How to Implement a Gratitude Practice
Gratitude Journal
I find one of the best ways to practice gratitude, and one of the things that my clients have the most success with gratitude is a simple gratitude journal. You can use a gratitude journal any time of day, once a day, or multiple times per day.
I find the easiest practice is to get up first thing in the morning, meditate, and then sit and write in my gratitude journal. And it's nothing huge or prolific it's simply three to ten things sometimes more that I am thankful for that very day. It could be things that happened the day before it could be things that have already happened that morning and when I'm having difficulty sometimes it's just I'm thankful for being granted another day of life.
This is often the easiest because it doesn't take much effort. But it has big rewards in the Gratitude Department. It also doesn't take much Excavating of old feelings at least not initially, but in time those will come out as well.
Mindfulness
If you can cultivate mindfulness you can become presents for and in your own body, for the person in front of you which I like to refer to as having Grace, or for the life you've been given. Mindfulness naturally leads to gratitude.
Now sometimes mindfulness is confused with meditation and that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about paying attention on purpose to the present moment and trying to be as non-judgmental as possible. It doesn't take much energy to connect with your life like this but when we are able to practice mindfulness which is a gratitude practice in itself you are letting thoughts and feelings move through us without taking us over or allowing yourself to get lost in it.
Practicing mindfulness as your gratitude practice or in addition to the Gratitude Journal can really help you to be aware of your feelings of gratitude and to help you stay more connected to everything people energy nature around you. It's really hard to have anything except gratitude in the present moment because you can look around and say what is wrong now right now right this very minute and the answer is almost always nothing.
Childlike Wonder
the last way to practice gratitude is to practice childlike Wonder. This Wonder helps us to become in touch with ourselves as children and can be replicated as adults. It helps to awaken the senses to understand and being all of the worlds around us. One of my favorite authors says that "all is a sense of amazement which is simply humility and wonder together about the mystery and magic of life."
And not a sense of all like a roller coaster-like a cheap thrill, but a total appreciation and gratitude for everything that life is. The pettiness, the fragility, the grandness, and the great adventure. Approaching your life with childlike wonder, approaching your day, approaching your job, approaching your family, approaching everything with this childlike wonder allows the heart center, the energetic center of your heart to actually feel connection and appreciation of the Miracles that are around us.
These are simple practices to add. I suggest adding them one at a time. Getting the hang of the gratitude journal, then adding the next 2 as they are slightly more advanced.
If you have more questions about how to practice gratitude and are looking for more actionable steps in this episode, I would love to have you join us in the Wellness Circle, my exclusive and free community to help women pursuing holistic wellness, body, mind, and spirit and discussions around the Autoimmune Revolution Podcast.
Friends chronic disease is 99% preventable and autoimmune disease is capable of being healed or put in remission with lifestyle, energetic, and nutrition practices. You can get the direct link on the show notes page or at audreychristie.com/facebook
To wrap this up...
To wrap this up - I’ll share a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert “ You were given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”
Thank you so much for tuning in, if you have a second it would mean the world to me if you could leave a rating or review! That helps me help more people to start an autoimmune revolution of their own. I’d be oh so grateful.
I hope you have the most magical and restful day friends, and I challenge you to leave your world, however you can, a little better than how you found it when you got up this morning.
Be well,