start monday with gratitude

week 13

Welcome to Week 13, lovely soul.

The end of this week signifies the completion of the first quarter of this year-long gratitude experience and journey.

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.

Being thankful is not always experienced as a natural state of existence, we must work at it, akin to a type of strength training for the heart

Larissa Gomez

video transcript

How naturally does gratitude come to you?

Do you waken up each morning and the first thing you feel is grateful? When you're faced with a challenge in your life, do you immediately feel grateful that it has entered your life?

Gratitude takes practice (that's why we refer to having a gratitude practice). Like any habit, it's not something that pops into our life and becomes an intricate, irreplaceable piece of our life's jigsaw, overnight.

And that's why it's likened to strength training. Gratitude is a muscle we all have but many of us do not even know that muscle exists or, if we do, it is weak because we only exercise it infrequently.

But what would happen if you exercised your gratitude muscle regularly and consistently? Like any muscle it would grow strong and have a presence. It would become easier to flex, and exercising it would become more of a habit because you'll have this desire to keep it strong.

But not only that. As you exercise your gratitude muscle and it grows, it becomes more visible. Similar to a bicep muscle, for example, the more you exercise it the more visible it becomes to those around you. Those around you get to experience your gratitude more.

And just like any muscle on your body, the more you exercise it the easier it becomes to carry greater weights, greater burdens, greater challenges. As you strengthen your gratitude muscle consistently you'll understand that challenges arise to test the strength of your gratitude and you welcome those challenges with an open heart because you know you have the strength to carry them.

So what's stopping you exercising your gratitude muscle?

daily gratitude practice

This week I shall be inviting you to work with an alarm.

Today I invite you to set an alarm every hour, on the hour.

When your alarm goes off, stop what you’re doing, and write down 3 things that you’re grateful for.

It can be 3 things within that hour, 3 things that day, 3 things in life… but you can’t repeat anything.

This morning I want you to set your wake-up alarm to 15 minutes earlier than usual.

When your alarm goes off, sit with your journal or notebook and spend those 15 minutes writing down anything and everything you feel grateful for.

Try not to repeat anything you mentioned yesterday.

As we start the day, so we shall end it.

Today I invite you to go to bed 15 minutes earlier.

Spend those 15 minutes writing down whatever you feel grateful for.

Again, try not to repeat anything you’ve already considered during this week.

Today I invite you to set 4 alarms at different times of the day. Try to pick random times that you won’t remember as you don’t want to be preparing for these alarms to go off.

So, for example, you could set an alarm for 10:08am or 2:54pm.

The alarms can be as close together or spaced out as you wish but also keep the spacing random. You really want to try to forget when these alarms will happen.

When an alarm goes off, stop what you’re doing and write down 10 things you’re grateful for, anything and everything.

Again, try not to repeat anything from the previous days this week.

Choose an hour you know you can fully commit to your gratitude practice. Set an alarm to go off every 5 minutes in that hour.

Every time it goes off, write down 2 things you’re grateful for. In between the alarms, try to stay active so you’re not simply sitting waiting for the alarm to go off and your mind isn’t focused on thinking ahead to what you can write for the next alarm.

For example, watch television or read a book. Something that lets your mind focus on, other than gratitude.

Again, as before, try not to repeat anything you’ve already written earlier this week.

Choose a time period, about 15 minutes that you could consistently, every day, dedicate to your gratitude practice.

It can’t be first thing in the morning or before you go to bed at night.

Set an alarm for this time and, when it goes off, sit down and write what you’re grateful for, for those 15 minutes.

Gratitude is like exercising a muscle at the gym. And, just like going to a gym, there are times when we struggle to express our gratitude, there are times when it’s not convenient, and there are times when we find our flow.

Today I want you to look back at this week’s gratitude practice and see which one worked best for you.

Then choose to incorporate that into your daily routine.

and let's not forget...

Well, we have been working with an alarm all week...

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.

“Being thankful is not always experienced as a natural state of existence, we must work at it, akin to a type of strength training for the heart” ~ Larissa Gomez

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.