In this video, I want to share with you how I practice gratitude and how it has changed my life.
Hi this is Supreet. I upload new videos every Sunday.
You can follow me on Facebook at crushing meditation and Twitter at CrushingMed.
First of all, I am just blown away by how many new subscribers I got this week!
My last video - "Happiest day in seven years" - has been my most popular video yet
and I have crossed the hundred subscribers milestone! So I am immensely grateful for that.
When I sit down to meditate, the first thing I do is express gratitude.
Gratitude is the first phase of my meditation. I do my meditation in phases.
If you're curious to know what the other phases of my meditation are, you can
click on the video that I have linked above.
So in the gratitude phase of my meditation, I think of three to five things that I'm grateful for today.
In the last year 2018, I used to write a gratitude journal where I would write
down three things everyday that I'm grateful for, but then I became lazy and
now I just think these things instead.
The key to expressing gratitude effectively is to be specific.
So instead of saying everyday "I'm grateful for family, health, prosperity",
try to think of different things every day. These things can be big things or small things.
Be as specific as you can. For example, if it has been cloudy and snowing for two days
and then the sun comes out I will say "I'm grateful to see the sun today"
If I've had a relaxing evening with my friends, the next morning when I do my meditation
I will say "I'm grateful for friends."
If I had a pain or sickness that went away, then I express gratitude for that.
I was going through my gratitude journal which I wrote in 2018 and I read some interesting things
and I'm going to share some of them with you in this video.
My absolute favorite one is this:
"Made it to the gas station without running out of gas."
Here are some that made me smile:
Advil, Costco's return policy, Dyson light vacuum, dark chocolate,
The Office - which is a TV show, one of my most favorite shows ever
and the next one is "Found my favorite body lotion on clearance at Bath & Body Works"
So things to be grateful for it can be the little things
because big things don't happen every day. We gotta find joy in the little things.
Here are some entries in my journal that are linked to my family members.
My daughter, who was five years at the time, said to me "I want to cuddle you forever"
and my son, showed kindness and empathy at school.
AJ - my husband - takes care of all my car issues without being asked.
This is something that until 2018, I had never even thought of.
I just took it for granted that because he's the guy in the house, it's his job.
It's only when I actively started looking for things to be grateful for every day,
that I realized that this is not something I should take for granted.
The next one is also related to AJ. "Woke up to a handmade Valentine's Day card on my nightstand"
Yup, my hubby is awesome.
The next one - "Grateful to have my sister in my life"
Then there are some miscellaneous ones.
"Bank work got done very smoothly without an appointment"
"Grateful for Public Library". That's because I am a huge fan of books.
I dig personal development and self-improvement books and those books
are actually the reason why I started meditating about four years ago.
There were some things which appeared multiple times in my journal.
Things like "Grateful for: living in Canada, fresh air, good health care system, prosperity."
It has never been a problem for us to put food on the table or pay the bills
and I'm very grateful for that. It is so easy to take things for granted especially when you've had
them for a long time. It just becomes your new normal but doing the gratitude journal
or the gratitude meditation every day helps me to remind myself of how lucky I am
and to not take these things for granted.
There are some days though when you're just in a bad mood and being grateful is
the last thing that you want to do. On days like that I force myself to do it
and I would usually think of things like this "I'm grateful to be alive, I'm
grateful that my family is alive, I'm grateful that nobody is in the hospital"
How has practicing gratitude changed my life? I am happier!
You cannot be both depressed and grateful at the same time.
Gratitude has made me smile - even if for a very brief moment - on days when I didn't want to smile.
So try practicing gratitude every day. If for any reason you cannot meditate, the next
best thing I would recommend is to practice gratitude and if you can do
both, that is even better. Start small. Just think of or write down one thing
every day that you're grateful for. If you're looking for an idea for a new
year's resolution, consider doing a gratitude journal.
On that note, I want to express my gratitude to you for watching my videos, liking them, sharing them.
I sincerely hope that every day you can find at least one thing to be grateful for, for the rest of your lives.
Thank you for watching this video I'll see you in the next one.