This month in our classes we’ve been focusing on the practice of gratitude. Now if you’ve hung out with me for any length of time you know that gratitude is a practice that is near and dear to my heart. Jonathan and I have kept gratitude journals for the last 8 or so years, we offer our gratitude at dinner every night, I even offer my own personal prayer of gratitude at the end of each class.

The practice of gratitude softens me, cracks open my heart, helps me see what is working, where there is fullness so I don’t get stuck focusing on the lack. It shifts me. But it’s not a cure-all or a one-time thing. Like our asana or meditation practices, it’s a long-haul kind of practice and of course, it’s a conscious practice.

And while I continue to write and offer my gratitude every day for the big and small things in my life, the question I’m asking myself these days is, “What is the feeling of thankfulness and gratitude?” It’s one thing to merely list what I am grateful for – but am I really feeling grateful? That, I’m beginning to think is where the shift really happens.

What do I mean when I say “the feeling of gratitude”? When I write that I’m grateful we are all home safe on a Friday night together after a long week, or that I had time in my schedule to be by myself and bake, or that we could pay all of our bills, I’m trying to sense what that feels like in my body and in my heart. Pausing to experience the feeling of gratitude behind each of these statements has allowed me to feel the relief, the joy, the contentment, the fullness, the excitement, the spaciousness, the letting go/surrender, the peacefulness. This for me brings the practice of gratitude to life and allows me to deepen my relationship with this practice.

Take a moment right now to write down 3 things you are grateful for and take the time as you write or read them to yourself to pause and feel what gratitude for that thing or person feels like. Notice how you feel after you’ve finished offering your thanks.

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