“What you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.  Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.” Oprah Winfrey

If Yoga has taught us anything, it’s that if we allow ourselves to stop and acknowledge happiness, the sensation tends to stay longer.  And stopping to acknowledge joy each time it comes up is one of the best ways to cultivate a little more joy in your day-to-day life.  Bringing more gratitude into your life is about learning to be aware and immersed in the present moment.  In order to be grateful, you must be willing and ready to show appreciation.  So how can Yoga help you to practise gratitude?

Here are some of our favourite ways to enter into an embodied Yoga practice, so that you might see the world through the prism of gratitude.

CONSCIOUS SAVASANA

When you surrender yourself to the earth in Savasana, you want to get comfortable with being completely still.  As you lie down on your back, let your feet and legs fall out to the sides.  Your arms can rest alongside your body, or you could place your left hand over your heart and your right hand over your belly.  There’s nothing else to do but to relax your whole body, including your face.

Focus and allow your breath to expand deeply through your entire diaphragm, moving you into a parasympathetic state of receptivity and grace.

CONSCIOUS SITTING

Conscious sitting, with your hands on your thighs, is like an anchor to the nervous system.  Conscious sitting is good for finding neutral alignment of the spine.  When the spine is unnaturally arched, it can be overstimulating.  So you want to recreate the feeling of Tadasana in your spine when you’re seated.

As you quietly sit and breathe, observe how you are positioned.  Align your crown above your rib cage and your rib cage above your pelvis.

WATER-INSPIRED FLOW

Embracing the water element in asana practice serves to transform stiffness – in both body and mind.  In being physiologically rhythmic like water, you embrace impermanence as one pose dissolves seamlessly into the next.  In focusing on the transitions between poses, your awareness embraces that tidal quality that equanimity requires.

To invoke the water element in your practice, embody shapes with curving, not straight lines, side bends, fluid twists and seamless transitions between poses, meaning, you don’t feel a hard stop between poses and very little holding of a single pose in your flow.

MANTRAS AND MUDRAS

Whether done at the start or the end of your physical practice, one of the most powerful ways to activate gratitude, gratefulness and thankfulness is through chanting a mantra.  You can silently repeat the mantra as a focus for your mind during meditation, or you can chant a few rounds as an invocation to your asana practice.  The Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is said to cultivate compassion, kindness and gratefulness.  The Sanskrit mantra Om Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu also encourages feelings of gratitude, kindness, forgiveness and peace.  Traditionally mantras are chanted with full attention and focus and repeated in sets of 108.  Mala beads are often used to count the mantras, or you can use a timer for maybe 5 or 10 minutes to start with.  

Ending your practice by bringing your hands together in Anjali Mudra in front of your heart and gently bowing your head is a wonderful way to close your practice with a sense of gratefulness and thankfulness.  You can do this for 5 breaths or even 5 minutes.