I’ve noticed more being written about gratitude lately, and the health and happiness benefits of being grateful.  One recent article talked about how it’s not enough just to mindlessly list stuff you like - you need to feel the positive emotions or the emotional connection to the things you feel gratitude towards to really get a benefit.  Here’s a visualization:

Get into Savasana after your yoga practice and take a few deep Ujjayi breaths while you relax, letting your body sink deep into the mat.

1. Place - Think of a place you feel grateful for.  It could be a place you’ve visited,  a place you go to to relax, it could be your favourite place in your home.  Someplace that allows you to be who you really are. See yourself in that place and experience it with all our sense.  See your surroundings.  Take in the colors and the feeling of the place. Feel the texture of whatever you’re resting on.  Feel the quality and temperature of the air on your skin.  Notice if there’s a smell to your special place and take that in.  Notice any sounds.  Take a couple more breaths while you enjoy being in your place.

2. Thing – Think of something you own and enjoy, that you feel grateful for.  Try to think of something that you feel emotionally connected to.  See this object in your mind’s eye.  Imagine yourself holding it, or if it’s a large object, sitting or relaxing with it.  Notice it’s color.  Notice its texture and how it feels.  Notice if there’s a smell or a sound.  Come up with a word that describes the emotional connection you have to this object.  Take a couple more breaths while you enjoy it.

3. Person.  Now choose a person you feel grateful for.  It obviously can be your partner or a family member, but doesn’t have to be.  It could be the person who serves you coffee in the a.m., someone you feel a connection with.   See that person and hold them in your heart center, in the middle of your chest.  Try to feel the connection or the feelings that they bring up for you. 

Bring a feeling of warmth to your chest, making the feeling stronger and bathing them in your gratitude.  Then taking a few more breaths, breathe that feeling of warmth throughout the rest of your body:  fill your torso, let it flow down your legs to your toes, let it flow down your arms to your fingers, feel it flow up into your neck and fill your head.  Enjoy the feeling of warmth throughout your body and let it relax any last bits of stress or tension you might be holding onto.

Then take your next breath a little deeper.  Bring slight movement back to your fingers, and then to your toes.  Rock your head slightly on the back of your mat.  Roll over onto your right side for a moment with your eyes closed, keeping as much of that relaxed feeling as you can.  And then make your way up to sitting.