Hello and welcome to another edition of Mindfulness Plus. I'm your host Thomas McConkey. Thanks for downloading us. If you're new to the show, what is Mindfulness Plus?

We operate on a very basic premise that changing the way you pay attention can dramatically

change your quality of life. That's it. Anybody can change the way they pay attention, but it takes a little practice.

And that's what we do here. Mindfulness Plus, we practice. And once a month, the Mindfulness Plus,

I do a little bit longer of a guided meditation. So our shows are about 20 minutes, sometimes 25

minutes or so. And I'll typically explain a concept for a little bit of the show and then take you into some practice.

Once a month, we focus mainly on just the practice.

That's what we're going to do today.

So wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you can keep doing it, but you can pay special attention to what you're doing, whether that's

sitting still, lying down, having a pleasant walk, maybe you're in rush hour, and you need a little

help relaxing. So that's what we're going to do. It's Thanksgiving tomorrow, it turns out.

And I wanted to offer a guided meditation on Thanksgiving, particularly gratitude,

with a mindfulness plus spin.

So without further ado, we'll begin. wherever you are whatever you are doing whatever your of being, your state of body and mind,

you can take a couple of big breath, just drawing in and letting go.

And do that again.

breathing out, extending the exhale, letting it all go.

And for the next few breaths, at your own rhythm, I want to invite you to continue to extend the exhale,

meaning just breathe out a little bit longer than you normally do on the out breath, getting rid of any stale air at the bottom of the lungs,

triggering your nervous system to open up and relax.

When we're anxious, our breathing tends to be really shallow, engaging the sympathetic nervous system.

When our breathing is deep, our exhale long, it triggers the parasympathetic nervous system,

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