start monday with gratitude

week 34

Welcome to Week 34, 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.

Before you get mad at someone, find something he/she did for you that deserves gratitude

Asmaa Dokmak

video transcript

Have you ever tried the “rubber band technique” to overcome a bad habit? Basically, you place a rubber band round your wrist and every time you feel tempted to indulge in that bad habit, for example, eating something that’s not beneficial to your body, you snap the rubber band to interrupt the feeling of temptation and ‘snap’ you back to awareness.

This quote from Asmaa Dokmak is just like applying the rubber band technique to the emotion of anger.

When you begin to feel the emotion of anger rising up within you and directed at someone, your rubber band snap is to focus on gratitude. Gratitude then becomes your emotion interrupter and helps ‘snap’ you back to awareness.

Because where gratitude is, anger cannot co-exist. They are polar emotions which simply cannot prevail on the same plane.

There’s something beautiful in stopping to find something that someone did for you that deserves gratitude. Not only does it re-direct and re-focus your energy towards something positive, but it reminds you that everyone has good inside of them. And it’s that goodness that you want to enjoy and reflect upon.

When you stop your anger in its tracks to re-direct it towards something positive to be grateful for, whether it takes a split second to remember something that person did that deserves gratitude, or whether it takes a few minutes, you’ll find that you won’t be able (or willing) to return to a state of anger. Because when you are in a state of gratefulness, your energetic vibration is raised and this feels light, freeing, and good. So why would you choose to turn your back on a sensation and a vibration that feels so good, to return to one that pulls your vibration to a low and heavy frequency?

When your mind, your body and your soul experience the frequency of gratitude, there is no desire to lower it. And, therefore, there is no need, no temptation to return to a state of anger. Indeed, when you’re in a vibrational state of gratitude, you’ll simply forget what was making you feel mad and angry in the first place. And that’s what makes this so beautifully special; you forget the anger and relish the gratitude.

daily gratitude practice

Just as important as gratitude is forgiveness. Often when we’re angry with someone, we hold onto that anger in our body or energy field and the only way to move forward is to release that anger through forgiveness.

However, forgiveness is a huge topic in itself, something that could easily fill its own book. So, we’re not going to do any forgiveness work here.

However, I do want you think of 5 people from your past whom you felt angry with and held a grudge towards them as a result.

When you have a list of those 5 people and, possibly, what they did to make you angry, then I invite you to write a new list about those 5 people.

This new list is a gratitude list. Why are you grateful for having these people in your life, even if they are no longer part of your life.

When you express your gratitude towards these people can you feel the anger, the hurt, the grudge begin to dissipate?

Quite often we judge someone for doing something that we deem to be wrong or unfair to us and that’s what makes us angry.

Today I invite you to think of 5 people who did you wrong or treated you unfairly. Nothing too traumatic but something that annoyed you. And the people should be people you know such as friends or family members, not strangers.

Write down who they are, what they did, and why you felt they mistreated you.

Now look at the situation from their point of view.

If they are or were a friend or a member in your family, they, most likely, didn’t mean to hurt or annoy you. So, view the situation from their perspective, try to see it through their eyes.

Can you see the situation differently now?

Can you see that they didn’t intentional mean to hurt or annoy you?

Are you now, now that you can see things differently, able to express gratitude for them in your life and your ability to understand things from their perspective?

Today I invite you to wear a rubber band around your wrist.

Every time someone does or says something that annoys, hurts, or angers you, snap your rubber band. Just simply snap it and do nothing more.

After yesterday’s exercise you should now have become used to snapping your rubber band every time someone annoys, hurts or angers you.

Today we’re going to complete the exercise.

Every time you snap your rubber band, I invite you to stop and spend a few moments, if doesn’t need to be long, thinking and remembering all the good things this person has said or done to you and then quietly express your gratitude for that.

Today I invite you to remember that everyone has good inside of them. Today we want to enjoy and reflect upon that goodness.

Spend time considering the good that resides in each and every person whom you know, be it a family member, friend, colleague, associate, who crosses your path today.

Today you’re off out and about.

You can go into shops, you can go for a walk in nature, you can go watch sports. Go somewhere that makes you feel happy and where you will meet other people.

Today, we’re going to have fun.

Every stranger who crosses your path today I want you to imagine and make up something good, something kind, something caring that they have done that day.

Have fun with this.

Celebrities and famous people tend to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

As soon as they step out of line or do something that others disapprove of, their name is splattered all over the media.

Today I invite you to pick 5 celebrities that you’re not overly fond of, 5 celebrities that you think aren’t the most kind or thoughtful or caring people.

Then google them and find out what good and beautiful things they have done in their life.

Does this change your perspective of them?

and let's not forget...

With the help of this week's high vibe tune do you suddenly see how much better it is to be grateful than to be angry?

dance along 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.

“Before you get mad at someone, find something he/she did for you that deserves gratitude.” ~ Asmaa Dokmak

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.