Guided Meditation Cultivating Gratitude Audio Lecture

StarLight Breeze Guided Meditations

About the Meditation
Relax your body, calm your mind, and soothe your spirit with this guided meditation lecture. Practicing meditation can help with greater mental clarity, resetting, and rebalancing every system in your body. It has a profound, rich, and calming effect, promoting feelings of peace and a sense of awareness.

This guided meditation lecture for ‘Cultivating Gratitude’ will promote feelings of appreciation and love to all that life has to offer. This practice explores encouragement to show gratitude towards ourselves and the world around us.

Gratitude is an important part of experiencing greater happiness. Being grateful for the small and bigger things in life allows us to feel more appreciative, relish every experience in a positive mindset, deal with difficult emotions, and build stronger relationships. It is an open door to an overall improvement in physical and mental health.

By being thankful, you can more easily acknowledge the goodness in all that life presents you with. It encourages you to connect to something larger than yourself as an individual — a true power of optimism and pure joy. Ultimately, gratitude allows us to celebrate the present moment.

This practices guides you into a journey of expressing gratitude towards yourself and your physical body. It will magnify positive emotions, helping you appreciate the value of all things you are grateful for and therefore lessening the likelihood of you taking these things for granted. If gratitude is practiced often, you are able to develop a perspective from which you can interpret negative life events in a positive light, helping you guard yourself against lasting stress and anxiety.

There are experiences in life that are very discomforting and unpleasant, however, developing a grateful and appreciate mindset, we are able to turn around these experiences into lessons from which we can learn and grow.

This meditation will take you on a peaceful journey, followed by deep breathing that will enable your body to relax further. By connecting to your breath practising gratitude, you will generate positive feelings more easily, which promotes resilience, performance, and social relationships.

Performing a gentle scan of the body, you will experience a greater awareness of the present moment and embrace all physical and mental sensations in an appreciative manner. For best results, it is recommended to practice meditation daily. Regular practice can help to reduce everyday anxiety and stress, improve your sleep, energise your body and mood, and ultimately improve your overall health and wellbeing. So breathe in, and may you find stillness within.

The Guided Meditation

Welcome to StarLight Breeze meditations … Today, we will focus on cultivating gratitude … And now, find a comfortable position … In a quiet place, completely undisturbed … Sit in an upright posture, fully supported … Keep your back, neck, and head straight … But not too tight … Settle into your space to spend some well deserved time for yourself … In this moment … To find stillness in the movements … In the breath … In the mind … To slow down the pace of ongoing thoughts … Images … Memories … Plans …

And when you are ready, softly close your eyes … Relaxing your shoulders … Your jaw … Your eyebrows … And allow your tongue to drop down from the roof of your mouth … Release any tension … Allow your body to become heavy … One with the breath … Breathing in … And breathing out … Feeling the air travel through the nose, down into your lungs … Expanding your belly and chest … And flowing back out into the air through the mouth … Gently breathing in … And breathing out … Be gentle with the breath … There is no straining, no pushing … Just gentle breaths … Welcoming this moment of peace and quiet in an open, warm embrace …

As you relax here … Becoming more grounded … More centred … Breathe into the belly … And release … Allow a wave of relaxation to slowly wash over your body … Imagine this wave is warm … As if it felt like a beautiful, sunny day … How it feels to have the warm sun caress your skin … Soothe you completely … Beginning from the top of your head … Moving down into your neck and shoulders … Going down your arms … Allowing this warmth to spread down your back … Your chest and abdomen … Flowing down into your hops … Legs … Extending all the way down to your toes … You feel safe … And relaxed … And if at any point you catch your thoughts wandering, know that this is completely okay …

Distractions are inevitable … Just simply notice that your mind has strayed, and gently return to the rhythm of the breath … To the sensations of the breath … Knowing that you are right where you need to be … Nothing else to do … Nowhere to go …

And now, taking a few moments to scan your body for any areas where there is tightness … Tension … Soreness … Perhaps even pain … Breathe into these areas … Allowing these sensations to to be released on your next exhale … Dissolving slowly … And notice if you feel any emotions arise to the surface … Any judgement … Impatience … Doubt … Or perhaps content … Joy … Excitement … Even if you are feeling neutral, just notice the state of your body, and your mind … To all that you have brought along with you to this practice today … And allowing it all to be released … Any holding on … With every out-breath, give yourself permission to invite more stillness … Peace … Silence …

And now that your body and mind are feeling clearer … A little bit more spacious, and open … I invite you to place both of your palms to the top of your chest, right above your heart centre … Even if it doesn’t feel right … Just allow your hands to rest in this area of your body … Feel the warmth from your palms … Thanking yourself for being here today … And acknowledging that just by purely turning up, you have already achieved so much … For having made the decision to be with the body …

With the breath … Maintaining a sense of gratitude for yourself, and for this time … Slowly begin to send your mind towards your feet … Being grateful for your feet and toes for carrying your body each and every day … For your ankles and their flexibility, allowing you to walk … Being grateful for your shins and calves, giving you support … Being grateful for your knees … For the flexible joints that helps you move forward … For your thighs … Being grateful for your pelvis, protecting your organs … For being a strong foundation of your body …

For your hips, holding your emotions, allowing you to be active … Being grateful for your torso, your front, and your back … For your stomach, helping you to digest nutrition … For your lungs, allowing you to breathe … Being grateful for the spine, for it’s constant and magnificent support … Being grateful for your shoulders, for helping you carry your responsibilities … Being grateful for your arms, for helping you embrace every experience with love and compassion …

Being grateful for your wrists, your hands, your fingers … Allowing you to carry out your daily tasks … Being grateful for your neck, for supporting your head … Being grateful for your lips, mouth, nose, eyes, and ears … For allowing you to sense … Being grateful for the head, your mind, your brain, for being a part of you … Breathe gently here … Allowing for the nutrition of this practice to sink in … Rest in this soothing experience … Surrender to all that you are feeling in this moment …

Cultivating gratitude helps us to maintain the feelings of happiness, joy, and appreciation for all things that life presents us with … Taking time to stop and note what you are grateful for expands your positivity … Lessening emotions of stress and worry … And note that you already have several marvellous gifts … The gift of life itself … The most precious gift of all … The gift of a heartbeat … Steady … Regular …

And now … As the time approaches to conclude this practice … Take a deep breath in … And breathe out … Gently begin by stretching your body … In any way that feels comfortable for you … Moving your legs, ankles, feet, and toes … Moving with ease … You can rub your hands together … Feel them tingle back to awareness … Broaden your alertness to external sensations of the surrounding space, sound, touch, and light … And when you are ready, soft open your eyes … Staying with the breath for a few more moments before continuing with your day … We hope you enjoyed this meditation practice by StarLight Breeze, and may you have a wonderful day.