As we approach the holiday season, I want to offer a practice that feels really supportive and grounded. In this episode, I illustrate ways to embody gratitude and stream it to and from your heart center.
As we approach the holiday season, I want to offer a practice that feels really supportive and grounded. In this episode, I illustrate ways to embody gratitude and stream it to and from your heart center.
It’s no secret that gratitude has powerful healing energy. When you are truly in gratitude and allow yourself to sit in that feeling, it shifts your entire frequency. When you're feeling appreciation and gratitude, the reward center of your brain lights up and releases dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter in the brain. You can use focus, breath, and visualization to harness the self-healing powers of your mind.
I break down the four qualities of a healthy breath and share tools to regulate your inhales and exhales. I walk you through a heart focused breathing exercise that you can tune into daily for just a few minutes, and I promise it will help you navigate these next couple of busy months.
Listen in to learn more about heart focused breathing and other ways to heal through gratitude.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hello, everybody. I am Dana frost your host and I am coming to you. For this recording. I'm in Seattle where I am completing the 40 years of Zen program that I was called away from abruptly in August when my daughter went into early labor. Today's episode is going to be short. And I promise you that you are just your heart is going to explode in this episode because we're going to be focused on gratitude streaming to and from your heart center. Okay, I can't believe that we are already in November. And you know what that means the holidays are upon us. I remember when we were living in Brazil, and Brazil has like three state holidays in November plus Thanksgiving. It was a very there were all these holidays. And then we had American Thanksgiving. And then we're at Christmas before we knew it. So right now we have two and a half weeks before the American Thanksgiving holiday.
Dana Frost 01:52
We have seven weeks until Christmas and eight weeks until we begin a new year, eight weeks until 2023. I feel like time has gone so quickly this year. I don't know how do you feel about the way that time has progressed this year? Now, I am coming to you. So this week, I want to talk about gratitude. And I want to encourage you to focus on a daily gratitude practice this month. It is no secret that gratitude is a powerful healing energy when you are in gratitude, and by that I mean you aren't thinking about gratitude, but you're feeling gratitude. So right now, in this moment in the podcast, I want you to think of a point of gratitude. recall a time when you felt gratitude for yourself for someone else for the conditions. Maybe because you have a body that moves where you need it to go. Maybe because the sun is on your skin and that heat feels so good to your body. Maybe it's the color of the fall leaves, or your morning cup of coffee or tea or or a conversation you've had with a friend or because you have a warm home. Because you have clothes because you have food on your table.
Dana Frost 03:11
I want you to think of a point of gratitude and allow the feeling of gratitude to vibrate throughout your body. When that gratitude vibrates throughout your body, what part of your body lights up? Is it your heart, your face your tummy? Is it tingles throughout your body where do you feel gratitude. Just allow that to be allow that to be and don't shut it down quickly sit in it allow it to resonate throughout your body. Now you might already know that when you're feeling appreciation and gratitude, the reward center of your brain lights up and releases a powerful, self rewarding feel good neurotransmitter in the brain. dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for allowing you to feel pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. As a neurotransmitter dopamine is involved in movement, memory, pleasure, reward and motivation. As I already mentioned, behavior and cognition, attention, sleep and arousal, mood and learning. I want to stop and pause here.
Dana Frost 04:24
Within our mind body system, we can activate feel good hormones, by tapping into emotions that are fueling like gratitude. This is so powerful. We don't need external chemicals to feel good. We were created in our design we were created to feel good given the right circumstances. And those circumstances can be created by training our minds to focus on emotional states that fuel these positive chemicals instead of deep fleeting emotions that fuel chemicals that tear down the body. Now, this won't be a surprise to you, but I believe that we have been fed a lie from our modern medical system and psychiatry that strips us of our agency to restore the body to homeostasis. to refuel and reset. This is built into our system. We've been programmed to believe that the only thing that will course correct when things feel out of balance is found at our local Walgreens or CVS. Big Pharma and modern psychiatry have been slowly programming us to believe we need a pill to feel better. And I'm here to tell you, please first try gratitude and appreciation. This is not some silly self help suggestion, it is grounded in clinical research. I would add that real food and exercise also contribute because we know that they do we know that lifestyle, and real food that the body recognizes actually shifts the terrain in our mind body system. I'm not going to go down the food and lifestyle rabbit holes on today's episode, because I just want to focus on gratitude. Okay, your mind is a powerful tool for self healing. We have this internal technology that allows us to harmonize two power centers in our body, the brain and the heart. All we need guess what all we need is focus, breath, and visualization. So all you need is your focus, your breath and visualization and the mind, the mind is so powerful, the ego part of your mind will try to take you away from the focus, redirect it, redirect it, bring it back to what you want it to do. So let's start with the four qualities of a healthy breath. And this is from the work of Dr. Andrew Weil. Your everyday breath has four characteristics deep, so quiet and regular. So I want you to guide and direct your breath to be deep. That means it enters through the nose and it goes all the way down and then inflate your stomach. It's slow, your breath isn't quick. It's the everyday breath as you're working and having your you know your day, passing by your breath is slow. It's quiet. Other people should not hear your breathing, if other people can hear your breath. And if you can hear your breath, It either means that you have an obstruction, maybe you have a cold. Maybe you have a deviated septum, or it means that your nervous system is dysregulated. So a breath that is audible to other people and yourself means that your nervous system is dysregulated or you have an obstruction. So your breath is deep. It's slow, it's quiet, and it's regular. The inhale and exhale are roughly the same. And you can play around with that. If you've never had a breathing, you know, focused on your breath. Just pay attention, what is the rhythm of your inhale and exhale and you can slowly gently guide it to be regular inhale and exhale roughly the same. Now I want to share what I learned years ago, and that is that your breath is the connection to your spirit. Your breath is the connection to spirit. What is the first thing when your spirit enters the world through your body, it takes a breath. And the last thing it does when your spirit exits your body. When you have your last moment on this earth is it takes its last breath. So connecting to the breath. It is the most powerful way to connect to your spirit. Okay, so now, let's visualize your inhale and exhale to flow to and from your heart center. So, physiologically, your breath is deep, so quiet and regular. We're going to bring online a visualization, visualize visualizing the inhale and exhale to flow to and from your heart center. This is a technique from heart map, heart focus, breathing, inhale and exhale flows to and from the heart center.
Dana Frost 09:27
And now let's add the feeling of appreciation. Remember a time that you felt gratitude or a time someone offered gratitude for something that you've done for them. Or research shows that you can even focus on third party gratitude, which would be the feeling of gratitude that you witnessed could even be from a movie or gratitude that you've witnessed in a friend so this is really powerful research that shows any memory of gratitude you Even if it's third party that you bring up in your body has the same chemical reaction. So with your gratitude situation called upon, bring that into your body and sink into that feeling of gratitude, allow the gratitude to radiate in your physical body. Okay, and now I want you to visualize the gratitude flowing on the waves of your inhale and exhale that is flowing to and from your heart center. So that feeling of gratitude flowing on the waves of inhale and exhale to and from your heart.
Dana Frost 10:40
Do you know that your heart can radiate the energy that it's feeling and expressing regardless if you're conscious of it, it can radiate across a room. The energy of your heart is that powerful. In fact, the energy of your heart is more powerful than the energy in your brain brainwaves radiate, they barely move beyond the body. Now, your powerhouse internal technology, your power is to power your brain through the intelligence and wisdom of your heart. And you can do that simply by using the Heart Math Science based breathing techniques. So for the month of November, we are going to have a daily heart focus, gratitude practice, if you will join me Will you join me for you know, it could be a few minutes a day, it could be when you're commuting, it could be when you're cooking, it could be in your daily quiet time practice. So the first thing we've just moved through that together but guiding your breath to be deep, slow, quiet and regular. You recall a moment of gratitude. Allow that gratitude to radiate throughout your body. Visualize your inhale and exhale to flow to and from your heart center with a feeling of gratitude. I will tell you, the way forward in this crazy world that we are living is in a simple gratitude practice. We need to return to our core return to the essence of who we are. As I said, who we are, that started when we took the first breath on planet Earth. Your breath is that connection to your soul. It's the first and last thing you do. As a human. It's the first and last thing your soul does as a human. But your soul lives on it was before you became a human. And it lives on after your human gently guiding your breath with the emotions that release healing these healing chemicals in your body. This is ground zero on living. With coherence and resilience here on planet earth we need. We need humans sprinkled everywhere. Throughout all the different environments that have that are emanating a field of coherence and resilience. I want you to pay attention to the people in your world in your environment when you're practicing gratitude, they will be impacted we impact the people in our field with with our heart focused gratitude. And even the research modern science has proven that we can actually non locally influence people with heart coherence. I can remember times when I've calmed the situation without saying a word but by simply dropping into heart focus breathing. With any emotional state that was fueling. I use inner ears the inner ease there is a technique from Heart Math called the inner East technique. So it's this inhale and exhale flowing to and from the heart center with a feeling of inner ease if you want to deal with anxiety. Have a Heart focus breathing practice daily anytime you're feeling anxious. Anytime you're feeling feelings that are incoherent and that feel depleting. Move yourself and to heart focus breathing with feelings that are fueling. Imagine the impact this month if each one of us slips in to heart focus breathing with a feeling of gratitude this month. We are all connected and our daily practices. They are our powerful portal to spreading love and light.
Dana Frost 14:43
Thank you for joining me on the vital you podcast. I see you I honor you I feel you through this practice of heart focused breathing. If you're enjoying these episodes, please hit subscribe and download. Share this episode So with a friend a friend you want to join you on this November journey of heart focus, breathing with gratitude and rate and review. These acts of gratitude, make my heart happy and support my podcast algorithm. Until next week, I am streaming love from my heart to yours