Gratitude Practice as Self Care
Doing this practice regularly not only shifts your mood, but it actually changes the neural pathways in your brain.
At first, and especially if you’re new to this sort of thing, you may find you have resistance to this. You might think “how can this even work?” Or you might feel it’s too new age or woo woo — not practical or action-based.
I thought this too, when I first heard Oprah talk about it many years ago. “How can I feel grateful for things when so much needs improvement?” I thought.
But what I know now is that the practice of gratitude, or learning to see all the small things that are actually working well in life, is actually a practice that not only shifts my mood to feeling calm and peaceful, but I’ve begun to see almost effortless expansion in many areas of my own life.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “What you focus on grows.” Well this is putting that Universal law into practice. When we start to see what’s going well and put our focused attention on those places, regardless of how small or seemingly trivial these areas are, we’re priming our brain to look for the good in all areas.
Don’t get me wrong — some days, trying to come up with anything that I can feel gratitude for can feel hard. It’s on these days that I go to little things, like “my spicy chai latte from Windy Saddle Cafe was so good,” or to a memory with my kids when they were little at Sandy Point beach. Your brain doesn’t know if you’re being grateful for something big like winning $10K or a happy memory from the past. In fact, your neural circuitry sees it all as the same thing.
TWO PRACTICES
If you’d like to ease into this practice before you commit a large amount of time, I’ve included two different practices — one is a mini practice that you can do throughout the day if you like. The other is a longer morning or evening practice.
Do this when
You want to shift your mood or raise your vibration
You want to add a self care practice into your life
You want to attract more love, abundance and peace into your life
You feel fearful, worried or anxious about the future
You want to calm your nervous system
Benefits
You’ll feel more peaceful and expanded
You’ll have a clear experience that you’re being supported
It brings you into the present moment (and out of the future or past)
You’ll physically change the “worry and anxiety” neural pathways in your brain to “trusting, loving and calm.” The longer you write and bask in the feelings of gratitude, you reinforce these neural pathways. You actually train your brain to look for good vs. what’s “wrong” and stressful.
Practice 1 (short and sweet)
Write down 3 things that happened in the past hour or two (or write a memory from the past) that you’re grateful for. It can be as simple as “My coffee was good,” or “I love how the sun felt on my face when I walked outside.”
You can set your phone alarm throughout the day to keep bringing your mind back to noticing or searching for “the good.” Practicing in this way begins to change the neural pathways and reinforce them.
Practice #2 (longer, possibly morning or evening)
Journal for 10-20 minutes about 3-5 things you’re grateful for. Allow yourself to really FEEL the gratitude and and linger in the feeling. ABSORB the feeling. The longer you can remain in the “felt sense” of gratitude, even if you’re thinking about something or someone from many years ago, the more neural pathways you’re creating and practicing/reinforcing.
As with any practice, the more consistently you practice, the more “results” you’ll notice. Doing a practice every day for 3-5 minutes is more valuable than doing a practice for 60 minutes 1X/week. Make this easy for yourself and enjoy!
Original blog: Restore With Awareness