Is a gratitude practice really all it's cracked up to be? Or is it just another instance of toxic positivity?

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In this episode, I discuss:

• 01:14 - Check-In & Grounding with Gratitude
• 05:25 - November: The Month of Gratitude
• 07:34 - Gratitude is Actually... Awesome!
• 08:09 - What's Coming this Month
• 11:19 - A Gratitude Challenge for You!
• 13:24 - Gratitude Meditation

Episode Show Notes:
"Hello, dearest, wonderful humans. It is November, which means that in the United States, it is National Gratitude Month, and the month of the very complicated holiday that we know as Thanksgiving. And we are also just about a week and a half out from World Kindness Day. So I would love to spend some time today and over the next month chatting about gratitude.

Let's check in first. Let's do a little grounding, a little noticing of how you're doing, how you're feeling in the moment.

Start by bringing an awareness to the points of connection between your body and the earth or whatever surface you are resting on, allowing that attention to start to come to your feet or parts of your legs or your hips or your back.

And as you feel that connection, that support, that holding of your body by the earth, perhaps also take a moment to think about everything that your feet do for you, all the things that your feet allow you to experience.

Your legs, your hips, how do they help you, what do they do for you, and your back.

And as you start to think about these areas of your body and how they allow you to be and do and go on a daily basis, maybe also cultivate a little bit of thankfulness, a little bit of positivity, a little bit of awareness of how these things serve you on a daily basis.

Allow that awareness to travel from your feet, legs, hips, or back into the core of your being and begin to feel into the sense of your breath.

Take a moment to really notice the feeling of your natural inhale and your natural exhale.

Pausing for a moment of brief curiosity as you allow your awareness to really stay here.

And then take a longer, deeper, fuller, more expansive inhale.

And a slower, more complete exhale.

Take a couple more big breaths here.

And perhaps then begin to think about how your breath supports you throughout your day, throughout your life, all the things that your breath allows you to do and allows you to experience.

Finding a bit of thankfulness in your heart for all that your breath does for you day to day.

If you haven't already, go ahead and settle back to a more natural breathing rhythm.

How are you doing?

How are you feeling?

How does November feel for you?

What does November bring up for you?

As we move into this month, we see even more than normal, these ideas, these practices of gratitude, just kind of thrown in our faces.

The platitude of gratitude, one might say.

I'd like to take a little bit of a deeper dive into gratitude practices, kind of a hard look at, is it cliché?

Is it lip service?

Does it just sound good, and it's an easy piece of content for someone to create and share?

Or is there a little something more, a little something behind gratitude practices?

Is there research to back up gratitude practices?

And if there is, there, there, are there guidelines?

Are there best practices?

Are there ways that we can incorporate gratitude in our lives without falling into those traps of spiritual bypassing, of toxic positivity?

And if there is something to be valued, how do we create those practices, create those routines, behaviors in our life, and keep doing them in a way that is personal to our journey.

Sarahlynn is actually pretty well studied, and there is a lot of evidence out there of all the ways that it can benefit our social and relational health, our mental and emotional health, and our physical health.

So next week, we will take a little bit of a closer look at some of the research and break down some of those benefits that gratitude practices can bring for us.

And then the following week, we'll take a look at how do we make it meaningful.

So we'll actually break down, chat a little bit about what is spiritual bypassing?

How does that show up?

How does it prevent us from doing the real work?

What is toxic positivity?

How does that show up?

How does that prevent us from doing the deep healing?

And how to approach gratitude in a way where we are not only focusing on this isolated idea of just happiness and thankfulness and everything is all rosy, but how do we acknowledge the realness and the rawness of our experience and maybe our resistances to a practice like a gratitude practice?

And then that allows us to move into something that is deep and meaningful without being artificial.

And then of course, even as we find those deeper levels of engagement with ourselves, we also still have to create practices that are attainable and accessible.

So I'll spend the last week of this month talking about a myriad of gratitude practices that we can do, whether or not you're into writing, journaling, letter writing, meditation, and give you lots of different ideas for how you might start to create an ongoing practice that feels right for you and where you're at in your particular journey.

And then, just because I do really, really love and believe in the power of gratitude, and I also have had a pretty long fluctuating journey with my relationship to Thanksgiving, I think I might do a little bonus episode in there for ways that we can reframe, reclaim Thanksgiving, and really cultivate meaningful practices in that context, too, that sort of separate from the way we were taught.

Many of us were taught about Thanksgiving in school, or perhaps in the homes that we grew up in.

So I do want to end with another little practice with you today, kind of similar to the way that I started out this episode.

But first, I want to offer a little challenge.

So you can think of this as part of your practice for today in continuing throughout the month, and then maybe even longer than the month.

And this is to do a little bit of a gratitude list, either at the beginning or the end of your day, or if there's somewhere else in your day where you already have a routine in place that makes sense, that works.

So grab journal, paper.

You can do it on a device if that works best for you.

Find that time in your day, and then I want you to write down three things that you are grateful for.

And rather than broader things, I invite you to get a little bit more specific in the things that you are grateful for.

So, rather than I'm grateful for my family, maybe you write, I am grateful for my partner's support during a challenging week.

So, think about how you can kind of dig a little deeper and a more specific example in your life that you're grateful for, which is really going to help you tune in to the meaningful feeling behind each item in your list.

So, my challenge to you, my invitation to you is to do this every day for the rest of the months, maybe continuing on through the rest of the year or into next year.

Let's end with another little practice, a little grounding and check in, a little more gratitude to send you into the rest of your day.

Go ahead and settle in to a comfortable position, whatever that means for you, walking slowly through a familiar area, seated, lying down and supported.

Begin to bring your awareness back to the points of connection between your body and the earth or the surface that you're resting on.

And allow your awareness to come specifically to the sensations of your feet in this moment.

If you can, wiggle your toes.

If you can, circle your ankles.

And think about one thing that your feet have allowed you to touch, to experience.

Do you love the feeling of your toes in the sand?

Do you love the feeling of your feet on moss?

Do you appreciate the sensation of your toes dipping for the first moment in to a cold ocean or a warm hot tub?

And allow yourself to visualise this experience of your feet connecting to a favourite experience, your feet allowing you to have this moment.

And then quietly or silently to yourself, say, thank you, feet.

Bring that awareness up to your legs.

And think about an experience that your legs have allowed you to experience.

A slow walk through a forest, a brisker walk through the mountains, a bicycle ride on a favorite trail.

Allow yourself to visualize this experience that your legs supported you through, allowed you to do.

And say to your legs, or silently if you like, thank you legs.

And allow that awareness to travel to your back, to your strong spine.

And think about all that your back allows you to do, allows you to experience.

Does your back allow you to hold yourself upright as you move through a favorite dance?

Does your back hold you as you sit and take in a favorite show?

Does your back allow you to soften and sink into shavasana at the end of a beautiful yoga practice?

And as you think about something that your back allows you to do, an activity that your spine helps create for you, say to your back, thank you.

Allow your awareness to travel all the way back down to your feet.

If you can, wiggle your toes.

Circle your ankles.

Allow your awareness to travel back outside the self.

If you close down your eyes, gently reopen, and reorient yourself to your space.

And as you move into the rest of this week, this month, this year, think about how you could carry a little more gratitude with you in your day-to-day moments, in your daily interactions, in the ways you treat yourself.

As always, please get in touch if you have thoughts, questions, comments, requests.

Don't forget to start your gratitude list.

And I will see you next time..."