Healing Gratitude Practice

Article by Angie Webster

Gratitude and love are extremely healing energies. They may be the most healing energies we have available to us. By accessing these energies consciously on a regular basis, we enhance our awareness of them and increase their availability to us. We are more able to keep these energies as our main point of focus and to call them back up when we lose sight of them.

The following practice can be incorporated into your self-healing, your meditation practice or used as part of a gratitude practice. It is also very useful to do whenever you have had a stressful day or you are coming down with something. It sends the healing energies of gratitude and love into the organs and cells of your body. While you can ask Reiki to flow as part of the process, it is not necessary to be attuned to Reiki to use the healing of gratitude and love. This technique is available to everyone and those who are attuned can send Reiki into it as an added bonus, if they choose.

I believe I first heard of a practice similar to this in a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher whose practices I find helpful. I have since adapted it and used it in various ways to assist myself in my healing. I regularly send love and gratitude to anything or anyone I am offering Reiki to, as well. I find it opens my heart and mind to the flow of Reiki, allowing a state of peace to settle in.

Start by allowing your attention to settle on your heart and your breath, in your chest. See if you can sense a warmth in your heart or imagine a warm ball of light. Let this light or warmth grow larger as you breath naturally. It may begin to feel as if it is oozing a liquid warmth all throughout your body, or as if the light is embracing you all over. Go with whatever your mind and body wish to feel and see at this time. Think of unconditional love. You have no need or desire to change anything. You are simply experiencing love. Notice your gratitude for love.

Now place your attention on any organ in your body you choose. You might begin with your brain, or your liver, or your heart. Allow this wonderful feeling of abundant love and gratitude to flow to the organ you chose. Tell this organ how wonderful it is. How much you love it and what a lovely job it has done it helping your body to function and to stay alive. Even if that particular organ isn’t working at its best right now, thank it for all it has done for you up to this minute and for all it is doing in this moment to heal and repair itself so that you can be well and at your best. If you feel you may have done anything at any point that was not in this organ’s best interest, tell it you are sorry and make amends. Infuse this organ with the gratitude and love that you have built up in your chest. Notice any shift you can feel in this organ. You may feel a sense of the organ regenerating or detoxifying. Or you may notice you feel lighter or have less tension or less pain.

Move through as many organs and body parts as you can think of or as many as you wish. You may choose to send love and gratitude to your eyes, ears, lungs, kidneys, blood, muscles, nervous system, feet, hands, even your cells and your DNA. Any area that you are having illness or pain may be an area that you wish to spend more time on, or you may choose to do the entire body and then go back and focus on the area that is having difficulty again at the end.

Put on soft meditation music and maybe light some candles, if that feels relaxing to you, as part of this practice, or simply close your eyes and let yourself drift deep into your body and the state of deep peace that comes with communing with your individual body tissues in gratitude and love.

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Angie Webster made a significant contribution to the Reiki community, with a particular focus on Animal Reiki, which she had a deep affection for. As a knowledgeable Reiki Master Teacher and Author, she conducted online courses on energy healing, herbalism, flower essences, and personal growth.
She is the author of “Animal Reiki: How it Heals, Teaches & Reconnects Us with Nature” and “Reiki from A to Z”. Currently, Angie has decided to retire from her professional life to devote more time to her health, family, and the little joys of life.