During this outbreak of Covid, sheltering in place, people losing their jobs, people losing their life over the color of their skin, there is a lots of reasons to be upset and horrified.
Does it cause you to lose sleep?
Be on edge with your family or people you are rooming with?
Feel resigned?
“How can I authentically experience gratitude in times like this?”
Well you can tell yourself you are grateful, but if it’s just words you are just faking it. It’s fake news.
And it’s actually okay to be where you are at.
Before getting on with it and getting grateful, what about getting present first. Get with what IS.
That doesn’t mean stay in it.
What we resist persists.
If you’ve numbed yourself it will come back and you’ll get in a cycle of numbing yourself until it becomes a habit.
You can break the cycle by starting to be “present”.
In this exercise or practice (if you want to explore deeper)
first approach yourself with some gentleness and kindness. Like if you saw a puppy and were to pet it. If you like kittens better then imagine that. This in itself can actually get you into a better head space. One way to learn how to make friends with yourself is to approach your body with some kindness.
What a concept!
Touch your chest with both hands and breathe in through your nose and out your mouth.
Allow your chest to rise with the inhale so you can feel it rise a little bit and sink with each exhale.
Notice how it does rise and fall ( is it jittery, smooth, hard to move, easy…?). Just notice and not make it something its not.
Take a couple cycles in the upper chest , lower ribs and belly button and look for the place where you experience the most relative EASE, PEACE, or ability to focus clearly.
And do a few cycles in that spot that is the best place for you. Focus on the movement, energy, breath.
You get to make a friend of your body.
From this state, you can start to recall what you are grateful for and feel it as well as say it or write it.
As a bonus, you can journal how you are going to show appreciation for someone or something the next morning!
P.S. To get a more detailed look at how to connect with self-compassion, check out the video that walks you through the process on our private group page here.
Koichi is passionate about setting people free from limiting patterns and beliefs. At an early age, he had health challenges. His mom, with the guidance of a chiropractor, created major shifts in lifestyle for the whole family to overcome young Koichi’s health problems.Years later with this new lifestyle served as a foundation for further growth into the realms of nutrition, alignment, mindset, spiritual and energy work.
With a rounded background in healing, nutrition and consciousness, for 20 years Koichi has transformed the lives of his clients and continues to grow, train and educate himself to continual serve to go deeper with his clients. He is also relieved to not have to write any more in the third person.