The Mindful Month
Week Four
WEEK Four
An interview with TAL BEN-SHAHAR
Using mindfulness to develop greater gratitude in life
In this video you’ll learn
- A powerful gratitude practice you can bring into your life to create deeper happiness (that is backed by research)
- How to transform perfectionism so that it optimises your life rather than destroys it
- A practical tip to support you to remember to do the practices that can lead to greater happiness
- Why it’s actually a good sign if we’re experiencing painful emotions some of the time
About Tal Ben-Shahar
Tal Ben Shahar is an author and lecturer who taught the most popular course at Harvard University on Positive Psychology, and the third most popular course on The Psychology of Leadership. He is the author of Happiness, The Pursuit of Perfect and Choose the Life You Want.
Week four meditation
This week we end the program with a meditation I created to develop greater appreciation and gratitude for the miracle of your body and breath.
This meditation offers you an opportunity at the end to sit silence for 5 minutes, until the final bell rings at 18 minutes. Feel free to sit in silence and just be with the breath for 5 minutes before the second bell.
One of the most fascinating parts of my early training as a doctor was dissecting a cadaver as part of anatomy class.
I remember holding a brain in my hands, and being completely awestruck as I tried to process how a lifetime of memories, feelings and thoughts could originate from this 3 kilogram tofu like substance.
To this day, one of the greatest gifts of studying medicine was learning about the miraculous intelligence of the body. This knowledge infuses me with deep gratitude on a daily basis.
As a way of bringing this appreciation to the body, I created a guided mindfulness practice that brings our awareness to the body and encourages active gratitude for this miracle that we so often take for granted.
Mindful Tip
Tonight when you get into bed take a moment to bring to mind all of the different organs and systems in your body and bring gratitude to each of them. The lungs for breathing, the heart for beating, the digestive tract, the liver for cleansing and detoxifying, the brain, the kidneys, the spleen, the nervous system, our skin, so many systems working every minute of every day to keep us alive…
Watch this inspiring short 3 min video by one of my favourite digital philosophers Jason Silva who talks about the benefits of being awestruck.