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A Grateful Day | A Grateful Year: Day 7 – Open Your Heart

The Gratefulness Team
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The seventh of an eight-day exploration of what it means to live life as a gift. Inspired by Br. David Steindl-Rast's meditation, A Grateful Day.

Welcome to DAY 7 of our practice. Let’s begin…

quote over walnut cracked open revealing heart-shaped nut.

Please close your eyes while you take three slow, deep breaths. Then open your eyes and consider the invitation to: “Open Your Heart.”

What does it mean to open your heart? And what does it have to do with gratefulness? When we talk about opening our hearts, we are pointing to a deference to the wisdom of our hearts with the understanding that the heart has an intelligence beyond that of our minds. In cultivating open-heartedness we are expanding our capacity to be with challenging emotions, situations and people, and to do so with tenderness, compassion and gratefulness. We can learn to attune to what emerges within this expanded capacity, and to trust the intuition and instincts which arise. It is through our hearts that we can connect to oneness. Our hearts know our inseparability from all that is, and it is through listening to our hearts that we connect with our interdependence and find that our actions and words are guided accordingly.

In honoring the wisdom of an open heart today, we invite you to:

  • Set an intention to open your heart. Notice how simply setting this intention impacts you.
  • Allow your heart to calm and inform you through doing a “Hand Over Heart” practice: Close your eyes, place a hand over your heart and take several slow, deep breaths. Breathe a sense of peace, calm and love gently into your heart and feel its perpetual rhythm in return. After a few breaths, sit quietly, feeling the effects of the practice for 30 seconds or so, attuning to whatever arises. If your schedule allows, you can try this several times throughout the day, or whenever you seek deeper ways of sensing what is true for you.
  • Look for opportunities to speak from your heart. When we speak from our hearts with sincerity and a desire for the good of the whole (as opposed to simply seeking to have our needs met), it opens the way for healing and new possibilities.
  • At day’s end, reflect upon what you noticed and explore how it feels and what might have changed as a result of following your intention to open your heart.
  • Write about your experiences in a journal and/or share below.

If you would like to explore this topic further, you might appreciate:

 

 

  • Cintia

    When I notice the violence, hungry children, loneliness… I ask myself, How is it possible open my heart? Some days it is so hard! My heart has scars and some are not healed.
    I don’t want compare, for example, I’m grateful because I live in a safe place and I have food and others don’t. Or living alienated, ignoring the life around me.
    Every single day is a special and unique, in order to learn about open my heart.
    I believe it mean live with faith tha...

    When I notice the violence, hungry children, loneliness… I ask myself, How is it possible open my heart? Some days it is so hard! My heart has scars and some are not healed.
    I don’t want compare, for example, I’m grateful because I live in a safe place and I have food and others don’t. Or living alienated, ignoring the life around me.
    Every single day is a special and unique, in order to learn about open my heart.
    I believe it mean live with faith that everything is perfect, respecting the destiny of each person.
    I really feel that sometimes I can’t, but it’s necessary. Because when I don’t share love, fraternal love, I get sick. The open heart giving love and compassion is my medicine.

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    • HelgaLena

      May be it is also necessary to open our hearts to the wounds we have gathered throuhgout our lives and those that are gathered in the hearts of so many people. Just feel the grief and the pain that is in our lives as part of our lives with an open heart: Ah, that´s how it is.

  • Sheila

    This past Summer I was blessed to be able to go to an all-day program given by Gregg Braden at Lily Dale. The program was titled “Human by Design” and it was wonderful! Gregg taught us the quick heart-brain coherence technique and it is truly transformative! A ?-felt thank-you for this practice!
    Blessings of peace to all?

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