Today, I feel grateful for…
My feral cat buddies.
This one feels hard and ridiculous and intense and overflowing all at once. It’s definitely bittersweet. When they showed up in my life, I nursed these inseparable, ragged, abandoned little kitties to health and showered them with love (and it feels like they gave it back too?). They’ve both disappeared for months now - MIA, might be dead. I’ve learned so much from having them in my life for a time - about love, loss, impermanence, attachment, compassion - and I’m extremely grateful for that. What started out as about 80% bitter and 20% sweet, when approached with this embodied gratitude practice, transformed into about 60% sweet and 40% bitter. I’m still grieving their loss in my life, and I feel like this helps.
I feel the gratitude concentrated first in my throat - through the lump in my throat when I think of them. But as I felt into the gratitude a little deeper, the lump in my throat faded out and the feeling migrated to my face, and then my heart.
How to join me with this simple hypnotic gratitude practice:
Take a deep breath. What do you feel grateful for right now - big or small?
Close your eyes, internalize it, really feel it. Where do you feel it in your body?
Stay with the feeling for a few moments. Let it land, expand, and settle into your cells.
Now externalize it - share your gratitude and any insights/reflections in a comment below, or on Instagram!
