Hey! Welcome back to your daily mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about gratitude and why it's one of my favorite hacks for happiness. But I have to be honest, gratitude is not something that comes easily to me. Despite being a mindfulness teacher, my brain has always been more wired to focus on the future to get excited about goals and all the things I'm working toward. It's very common for me to reach a big accomplishment and then quickly start thinking about the next thing I'm working toward.

Although this future thinking is accompanied with the sense of enthusiasm for the things I'm working toward, it often does prevent me from fully appreciating my life as it's happening, and creating this subtle sense of like, 'once I get that, then I'll be fulfilled'. So one of the things I love about connecting to gratitude, even if only for a few moments, is that it immediately takes me from a mind state of lack to one of abundance. And I'm wondering if you can feel that yourself. You know, when you're truly connected to and embodying a moment of gratitude, you're not thinking about what you don't have and what's not going well, and all the things you need to fix. Instead, you're consumed with what is good in your life.

Feeling the fullness of that. Even if it's something small, like a good meal or your breath. And gratitude isn't just a nice idea or something that our grandmother might tell us to do. There's a lot of research to support the benefits of it. The latest Science shows that developing more gratitude strengthens our immune system, it lowers our blood pressure, improves sleep, makes us more forgiving, and reduces loneliness.

And, although a lot of people fear that if they become grateful, they'll become more complacent, the research by Dr. Robert Emmons shows us that it's actually the opposite. That gratitude actually fills us with energy, and it drives a sense of purpose and desire to do more. For all of these reasons, I do believe gratitude is one of the low hanging fruits for living a fulfilling life. And in today's meditation, we're going to do a practice that trains our brain to experience this fulfillment on a more regular basis.

So, as always thank you for your practice, and I'll talk to you shortly. Until then, take care.