start monday with gratitude

week 6

Welcome to Week 6, lovely soul.

Below you'll find the video and video transcript introducing you to this week's quote and musings.

Scroll further and you'll discover this week's daily exercises, high vibe tune, and downloadable wallpapers.

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around

Willie Nelson

video transcript

We are showered with blessings every single day, yet many of them go unnoticed because they’re either too small or they’re too regular.

When we think about blessings and what we should be grateful for, we tend to focus on the big things that we deem worthy of our thanks and gratitude. However, the big things don’t come along every day. If they did, we’d become too accustomed to them and we’d consider them too regular and, indeed, they would end up also going unnoticed.

Therefore, our gratitude practice tends to not be a regular part of our life because our focus is directed towards the big, occasional moments and experiences.

But, what if we changed our focus and gave thanks for every blessing that we receive, no matter how small, no matter how regularly we receive it?

What if we gave thanks for the hug from a loved one, for the unconditional love of a pet, for the warmth of the sun on our face when it peeks through on a cloudy day, for the coolness of rain in summer, for the smile from a stranger?

When you change your mindset to count even the smallest and most regular of blessings, you’ll discover just how full your life is. When you change your mindset to count even the smallest and most regular of blessings, you’ll open the door to a blessing tsunami. Because you’ve changed your mindset, because you’ve changed your view of life, your whole life will, quite literally, change overnight.

The small blessings, the regular blessings are part of our everyday lives, and they simply go unnoticed. When, however, you shine a light upon them and start to notice and show gratitude towards each and every one of them, it’s not like they’ll show up gradually, one at a time, to ease you in gently to this new way of viewing of your life. They’ll keep showing up as normal, and just as regularly.

Only, now, because your focus and appreciation has turned towards them, now you’re consciously open to see them, they’ll flood your consciousness just as they’ve been flooding your whole life every day. The only difference is you can now see and give thanks for those many blessings rather than letting them drift by unnoticed.

There’s nothing that can impact your life more than changing your view to count each and every blessing that comes your way every day, no matter how small, no matter how regular. All the blessings that you would have taken for granted, all the blessings that would have gone by unnoticed, all the blessings that would have been too small to count, all the blessings that would have been deemed too regular to be special, now they enter your consciousness and flood your awareness.

daily gratitude practice

In week 3 you practised expressing gratitude for the many small blessings that happen in your life, daily.

If you’ve continued to practise expressing gratitude for the small things, this week may be a ‘walk in the park’. If you haven’t, then not only will this week serve as a reminder of the importance of expressing gratitude for even the smallest of blessings, it will also help you do so.

Whether this week is a ‘walk in the park’ or a swim upstream, your gratitude practice will deepen as a result.

For today’s gratitude practice, I invite you to set yourself an alarm every hour on the hour.

When that alarm goes off, I encourage you to focus on everything that happened to you, everything you experienced in that past hour. And then spend a few moments giving thanks and expressing gratitude for everything you have recalled.

The big things that we are most often grateful for will, most likely, not have happened in the hour that has just passed. However, every hour contains a multitude of tiny things to be grateful for.

Today we’re going to express gratitude in a more mindful manner.

Mindfulness is all about being in the present moment, the here and the now; not focusing on the past or looking to the future.

So today I want you to be mindful of everything that happens to you and everything you experience, when it happens and when you experience it.

As that something happens or you experience it, express gratitude for it in the moment. Not an hour later, or at the end of the day, but in the moment.

Most of what you shall experience in the moment will be the small blessings in life like a smile from a stranger, the bright and happy song of a bird nearby, a refreshing glass of water.

However, as we already know, the small, the regular are not insignificant and we should never take them for granted.

If you find 5 or 10 minutes, an hour, a few hours, after something happens or you experience something you should have expressed gratitude for, that you realise you forgot to express gratitude, I ask you to forgive yourself for forgetting but not express gratitude – the time has passed.

Seems counter-intuitive?

Surely you should always express gratitude whether you’re a bit late or not?

Usually, I would say ‘yes’. However, today’s practice is a training in mindfulness, in being in the present moment and practising gratitude as something happens and as you experience something.

“When you change your mindset to count even the smallest and most regular of blessings, you’ll open the door to a blessing tsunami.” Are you ready to open the door to a blessing tsunami today?

Today I want you to keep count.

I recommend you keep count in a notebook so you can physically see the blessing tsunami come your way.

I want you to express gratitude, out loud or in your head, each hour of your working day. Then at the end of each and every hour I want you to stop and take note of how many times you expressed gratitude. How many opportunities were presented to you to express your gratitude?

Continue this throughout your working day and at the end of the day compare the number of times you expressed gratitude in the first hour and the number of times you expressed gratitude in the final hour of your working day.

How has that number grown?

It’s not that the end of your working day presented more opportunities for you to be grateful for, it’s that, throughout the day, you have been gradually changing your mindset and opening your eyes to opportunities to be grateful for that you have noticed more.

At the end of the day, I invite you to look back at the small things you expressed gratitude for today.

How many times did those small things arise today and did you express gratitude for them each and every time or only the first time?

When small things arise regularly, we tend to gloss over them because they become the norm.

However, the small things count every bit as much as the big. And the regular small things count every bit as much as the one-off big things.

What repeated small things did you give thanks for only once or occasionally today?

Express your gratitude for them again now.

This week you have been training yourself to spot opportunities for gratitude as they happen – in the present moment or, at the very least, within the current hour.

As a result of this ‘brain training’ and opening your eyes to more opportunities to express gratitude, you should be spotting more and more coming your way.

So, we’re going to repeat the exercise you did on Monday, today again.

I invite you to set yourself an alarm every hour on the hour. When that alarm goes off, I encourage you to focus on everything that happened to you, everything you experienced in that past hour.

And then spend a few moments giving thanks and expressing gratitude for everything you have recalled.

How many more opportunities to express gratitude do you find each hour today, compared to on Monday?

Every second of every day there is something we can be grateful for.

So, no matter how many things you expressed gratitude for this week, no matter how many things you counted each hour that you were grateful, there would have been opportunities that you missed or didn’t see for which you could have been grateful. Opportunities that happen so often you no longer notice them. Or opportunities that are so small, you skip them over.

Today I invite you to practise the mindful gratitude practice we did on Tuesday, but I also invite you to set an hourly alarm as well.

When the alarm goes off, I invite you to stop and consider everything that happened and that you experienced in that hour.

What happened and what did you experience that you missed in your mindful gratitude practice?

What was so small it passed you by unnoticed or that you skipped?

Whilst there will have been many, I invite you to find at least one each hour and then be grateful for it.

It’s the end of another week of gratitude and your experience, as a result, will have deepened so much.

Today I invite you to take time to reflect on all the exercises we covered this week.

I want you to look back to Friday and see how many more opportunities to express gratitude you found in your hour compared to when you practised it on Monday. Express gratitude for your growth.

I invite you to look back to Tuesday and how, by the end of the day, you were so much better at catching things to be grateful in the moment they arose than you were at the start of the day. Express gratitude for your growth.

I invite you to look back to Wednesday to see how many more opportunities for gratitude you experienced in the final hour of your working day compared to the first hour. And express gratitude for your growth.

I invite you to look back to Thursday and recalling the small regular things that you may have glossed over. Express gratitude for your growth.

And, finally, I invite you to look back to yesterday and the moments you discovered that you originally missed. And express gratitude for your growth.

and let's not forget...

This week's high vibe tune reminds you to love your life

dance to this week's high vibe tune here

have gratitude wherever you go...

... with this week's gratitude quote wallpaper.

Note: details of how to download this week's wallpaper is provided below.

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around” ~ Willie Nelson

16:9

16:10

4:3

mobile

how to download your wallpaper

Before copying one of the pictures below, you'll want to quickly check your screen settings because the worst thing you can do is use a wallpaper with an aspect ratio that differs from the aspect ratio of your screen.

The aspect ratio of a rectangle is simply the proportion between width and height. The most common are 16:9, 16:10 and 4:3. And it will be for these 3 sizes that I shall provide you with your free wallpaper.

To find your screen resolution follow this basic guide. Steps for your computer may vary slightly but I hope this will give you some guidance:

Right-click the desktop and select Display settings.
Scroll down until you see "Resolution" (you may have to choose an "Advanced" option)
To find your aspect ratio, divide the width over the height. For example, if my resolution is 1920 x 1080 then I would divide 1920 over 1080 to get 1.778, which indicates a 16:9 resolution. Similarly, 1.6 indicated 16:10 and 1.333 indicates 4:3
When you've calculated your screen's aspect ratio, go to the picture below that matches that size
Right click on the picture and select "Set as Desktop Background"
Choose whether to "Fill", "Fit", or "Stretch" your picture - if you've chosen the right size "Fit" will be your best option
Select "Set Desktop Background" and you're done

First, save the wallpaper image to your phone by pressing your finger on the wallpaper image and hold down on it until you see a menu.
From here, click the “Save image” tab, and it will begin downloading.
The next step is to set this saved image as your wallpaper by pressing and holding a blank area on your screen (meaning where no apps are placed), and home screen options will appear.
Select 'add wallpaper' and choose whether the wallpaper is intended for 'Home screen', 'Lock screen', or 'Home and lock screen'.
Another set of options will appear where you can choose where the photo you would like to use will be coming from, namely the Gallery.
If necessary, crop the image to a suitable size. Once satisfied, simply click 'Done'.

First, save the wallpaper image to your phone by pressing your finger on the wallpaper image and hold down for about 2 seconds until a menu appears.
From here, click “Save Image“, and it will begin downloading.
The next step is to set this saved image as your wallpaper by, first, going to the 'Photos' app and selecting the wallpaper photo you've saved there.
Click on the share icon on the lower left corner of the screen, then select 'Use as Wallpaper'.
Then choose to set the photo as either the lock screen, home screen or both.