Day 2 of the meditation challenge sees me turning to gratitude. 

They say that love makes the world go round. I say that gratitude is the secret sauce of the Universe. 

When you start actively practising gratitude, you invite more reasons to be grateful into your life. What’s more, the simple act of feeling grateful has so many benefits, including decreased levels of depression, improved well-being and even better quality sleep. If the only meditation you ever do involves spending a few minutes feeling thankful, you’ll be giving yourself a beautiful gift. 

Today’s method is simple. Make a list of things you are grateful for you in your life. It is entirely up to you how many things you put on your list, but I recommend listing at least three. If this is the first time you’ve made a gratitude list you might find it difficult to think of items and that’s okay. Time and practise will make it easier (because you’ll be attracting more positive things into your life!). To begin with, you might like to look at the simple things in life, like your bed (which makes its way onto my gratitude list practically every day!) or the fact you got home before it started raining or a new show coming onto Netflix. Maybe someone’s done something nice for you – you can be thankful for both the person and the deed.

Once you have a list, set a timer for 1-5 minutes. If you’re new to gratitude and meditation, start with just one minute and extend it the more you practise. 

Now all you have to do is work your way down your list, feeling nothing but gratitude for each item. One of the advantages of this method is that you get to control how long you meditate for. Don’t have much time? Do 3 items for a minute each or even 5 items for just 30 seconds. Want to really indulge yourself with gratitude? Do 10 items for 2 minutes each. You are in complete control of the process and you get to decide how long you meditate for and what about. Whether you use the same list every day or mix it up and make a brand new list for each meditation is entirely up to you. The main thing is you feel grateful. 

Let me know how you get on in the comments!