The Inner Gym by Light Watkins

Author:Light Watkins [Watkins, Light]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780990811800
Publisher: L&G Publishing
Published: 2014-12-29T22:00:00+00:00

RECEIVING INSTRUCTIONS

Recommended Equipment:

Five blank thank you cards or writing paper

Five envelopes

Five postage stamps (optional)

Be more thankful. Over the next five days, in addition to your five- to ten-minute morning meditation and listing your five statements of gratitude, you will exercise mindfulness of what you’re receiving by silently or verbally offering thanks to the people, animals, or nature you encounter for sharing with you their abundance. You won’t need to express thanks in any elaborate or subservient way. Sincerely thanking a friend or a stranger (or Mother Nature) for gifting something to you is enough. Communicating how much you appreciate the gift or help goes a long way. Use your best judgment to determine the number of thank you’s or the appropriate situations in which you thank someone. Here are some examples of mindful receiving:

• Thanking your spouse for cleaning up behind you

• Thanking the barista for making your coffee

• Thanking someone who offered constructive criticism

• Thanking the chef for the tasty lunch

• Thanking security officers for keeping you safe

• Thanking gardeners, painters, and maintenance crews

• Thanking the cop for your speeding ticket

Choose one person to offer written thanks. Along with oral thanks, you’re also going to handwrite either a brief thank you note or thank you card on each day of this exercise to someone who knowingly or unknowingly helped you. For this task, think back to the last time a friend or relative cooked for you or for your family, or went out of their way to help you. Don’t forget about your mentors, the doorman, your bus driver, the kid’s nanny or schoolteacher, the postal worker. Surely some of these people deserve a little extra recognition for helping you or your family. Now, choose at least one person a day during these next five days and send them a personal, handwritten note or card thanking them. Let them know why you appreciate their gift, service, or presence and how it has helped you.

Record your findings. In your exercise log at the end of this chapter, take a few moments to jot down a short list of five people to whom it would be relatively easy to send thank you cards—people you work with, neighbors, relatives whose addresses you already have (you can modify as you go along)—and have fun exercising the often-neglected receiving muscle.

MORE ABOUT WRITING YOUR THANK YOU NOTES

Few people handwrite and mail letters anymore. You can make someone’s day with this small act of kindness and gratitude, while simultaneously training yourself to stay more aware of the gifts in your life. It’s a win-win. People love receiving handwritten notes. When is the last time you received a handwritten note from someone thanking you for something you did? How did you feel when you read it? I’ll bet it brightened your day.

Regarding style, expressing thanks in your own voice always comes across as more sincere and endearing, so write from your heart.

If you don’t have someone’s address, choose people who live or work in places you frequent,

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