Inner Peace MeditationsGuided meditations with Steven Webb Join Weekly Calm

Meditation 19 · 5 April 2023 · 11:31

Sunrise Gratitude: Welcoming a New Day

Gratitude before the day gets hold of you. Four rounds of it: your body, your people, your place, and the things that happened to you.

Subject: Morning

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Inner Peace Meditations · Meditation 19

Length11:31
SubjectMorning
Best timeFirst thing, cup of tea in hand
PositionSitting, back reasonably straight
StyleGratitude in four rounds. Music underneath

Gratitude before the day gets hold of you. Four rounds of it: your body, your people, your place, and the things that happened to you.

About 11 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice. Perfect for the morning.

You thank your heart for keeping going and your legs for carrying you. Then the faces, pets included, and the roof over you. Last, the experiences, the welcome ones and the ones you would not have chosen. I finish on the kettle, because nobody notices the kettle until the morning it stops working.

Treat me to a coffee, keep the podcast free, and get my Weekly Calm every Sunday. It is all on stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for sitting with me.

Steven

Who this is for

You want to start the day somewhere other than the to do list.

Most gratitude practices ask for three things and leave you rummaging. This one gives you four categories and walks you through them, which takes the searching out of it.

What happens in this meditation

Your body first. Thank you heart for keeping me alive. Thank you legs for carrying me. Whatever it does all day without being asked.

Then your people. Faces one at a time, pets included, and people from the past count.

Then your places. The house, the room, the bit of coast or countryside you go to when you need it.

Then your experiences, and this is the one with weight in it. The good ones and the ones you would never have chosen, both of which made you who you are.

It ends looking ahead at today, and on the kettle, because nobody notices the kettle until the morning it stops working.

How to get the most from it

Eleven minutes, first thing, before anything has had a chance to go wrong.

Sit up. Alert and relaxed rather than half asleep.

Say the words in your head with the name in them. Thank you, and then the actual person. It lands differently from thinking about them in general.

Questions people ask

How is this different from a gratitude list?

The categories. Being asked for your body, then your people, then your place, then your experiences stops you writing the same three things every morning without feeling them.

Can I be grateful for something I would not wish on anybody?

You can be grateful for what it built without being glad it happened. Those are two different things, and the second one is not being asked of you.

Does it have to be the morning?

It is written for the morning and it works whenever. If today has already been long, doing it in the evening is a decent way to put it down.

Listen together

The companion talk

The Stillness in the Storms episode that goes with this meditation.

Stillness in the Storms · Episode 140Finding Peace and Stillness in the Current StormsListen on Stillness in the Storms

Read along

The transcript

It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.

morning · gratitude

Read the transcript

Welcome to this sunrise gratitude meditation.

As your day begins, we will take this time to center ourselves

and focus on a few things that we are grateful for.

This practice helps to keep us positive and it sets off the tone

of the day.

It gives us an attitude that we really appreciate the stuff around

us.

We don't take things for granted.

So we do this by just finding a comfortable position.

It doesn't matter whatever position you want, whether you're

sat at the table with your cup of tea or sat up in bed.

As long as you keep your back relatively straight and you're alert

and you're focused, but also relaxed.

And gently close your eyes or just soften your gaze.

And we begin by taking a few deep breaths.

And breathe in, calm and breathe out, relax.

And as you breathe in, calm, pause slightly.

And then when you relax on the out breath, just allow your body

to relax.

You're inviting your body to relax.

It's not something you force it to do.

And pay some extra attention to your shoulders and maybe your

jaw and your face and just allow them to relax.

These are the areas that normally hold quite a bit of tension,

even first thing in the morning.

And now return back to your breath.

Just I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out.

You don't have to do anything with your breath.

Your body knows how to breathe.

It's been doing it without you getting involved for a long time

now.

And the first part of the gratitude is we're grateful for our

bodies.

So just bring your awareness to your body.

Consider the many ways your body serves you every day, from your

beating heart to your lungs that allow you to breathe.

And you can silently express this gratitude for each part.

Just sending a bit of love and appreciation to every cell of your

body.

You may say something like, thank you heart for keeping me alive.

Thank you legs for carrying me throughout my day.

Then just take a moment to appreciate your whole body.

Without your body, you wouldn't be here.

You wouldn't be able to experience anything.

Now we'll move your attention to the people in your life.

The ones who are so important to you.

You can picture their faces one by one.

It may be even a pet.

Whoever gives you comfort.

And you can silently thank them.

Thank them for the joy they bring into your life.

You may say something like thank you and the name.

Thank you and the name for being there for me.

Thank you for bringing me laughter in my life.

And as you breathe in, feel your heart swell and the love and

gratitude for each person you think of.

And it may be people from the past.

And next we'll consider the environment around you.

This may include your home, your workplace, or any place that

brings you comfort and safety.

Silently express the gratitude for these places and the role they

play in your life.

You may say something like thank you home for providing me shelter

and a place to rest.

Thank you nature for your beauty and your serenity.

And just appreciate there is a place somewhere where you enjoy to

go.

And finally, we'll reflect on some of the experiences and opportunities

in your life.

Some of them may have shaped you and who you are today.

This may also include the challenging moments that have helped

you grow.

Or as well as joyful experiences that have brought you

happiness.

Some experiences you would have wanted and some were not so

welcome.

With a big heart you can feel grateful for all your experiences.

They've made you strong, they've given you joy and may not

have always been great.

Thank you experience for teaching me resilience.

Thank you to an opportunity for allowing me to learn and grow.

Thank you to an experience for giving me joy and happiness.

It may be something as simple as music.

And as we come to conclude the sunrise gratitude meditation, we

just take a few deep breaths and feeling our heart filled with

gratitude and appreciation.

We are to be grateful for our bodies and what they do for us and

the way they tirelessly try to keep us alive and try to keep us

healthy.

The gratitude for the loved ones, past and present, maybe the

pets around us and grateful for the surroundings, maybe our home

or a place in nature we love.

And finally the opportunities and experiences we've had.

And maybe as we look forward to today, we can be grateful for

a few things that are coming our way.

We are here.

We've got a new day ahead of us, a new opportunity.

Maybe we can take a deep breath and just look forward to today

with an openness that it could go our way and it could go the way

we want it and whichever way it's going to go.

I can put my head down tonight and feel grateful.

That's what you could feel.

So carry this energy with you throughout the day, remembering to

express gratitude for the big and small moments.

These are what make up your life.

When you're ready, gently open your eyes and return to your surroundings.

Shake out your arms.

Yeah, just to be a little more grateful for when things are just

working.

We sometimes aren't grateful for the kettle because it seems to

work most days, but we certainly don't like it when it's

not working.

And the same as the car we get in, we turn the key and it drives.

Then one day it doesn't work, and we're, like, angry with it.

It's just appreciating those things that just work and are part

of our lives right now.

The little joys, the big things, and the small things.

Wishing you the most beautiful, grateful, happy day.

I'm Stephen Webb, the host of Stillness in the Storms podcast,

the podcast that helps you to see life a little bit different from

a different perspective, to give you more peace and joy and resilience

when you need it.

And if this meditation helps, head over to thank you, Stephen,

where you can download a book to help you find some inner peace

yourself and perhaps treat me to a coffee.

That would be awesome.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye.

Weekly Calm

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

A little space to pause, a practical thought to take into the week, and a reminder that you’re not doing this alone.

Join and I will send you my book, 5 Simple Practices for Inner Peace. Free, and yours to keep.