You are free to express gratitude however you choose, but here are two ways that I like to break this down.  One way is to express gratitude in a broad sense for things we are grateful for overall, which can be multiple things, one after another.  Another way is to hyper focus your attention on a single thing and place all your attention there.  This could be for something in specific have been blessed with, a certain person in your life, etc.

There are endless ways you can set an intention, but below are a few examples: 

One example would be setting an intention of showing more love and compassion today.  In my practice, I would set the intention of opening my heart to love, focus my attention on the feeling of love as well as what I am doing to experience it, and then make sure I have an open attitude ready to receive it.

Other examples could be setting an intention of nailing a job interview, performing flawlessly on stage later, being more confident, being more present, enjoying a peaceful day that is void of fear and stress, taking the first steps to starting a nonprofit, becoming a better parent, etc.

Note: You can think of an intention as a prayer request.

This is simply the act of sitting silently allowing room for God to speak to us.  The best way that I have found to receive guidance from God is to have no expectations, keep a wide open mind for any and all possibilities, remind myself that God is eagerly waiting to guide me, and to maintain the grateful attitude we opened up to at the beginning of this session.

To do this meditation you will need to break your meditation down to 3 parts.  Since these meditations are 15 minutes, you will break each section down into a 5 minute meditation.  To start, I would set a 5 minute timer and meditate on the first section until the timer goes off.  Then repeat this until all 3 sections are complete.

Part 1: Gratitude

For part 1 of this meditation, we are simply expressing gratitude for the things that we have been blessed with.  When we start off a mediation by expressing gratitude, we become open to receiving guidance.

Part 2: Intention

For this meditation, you can set your intention to be anything you wish.  Some examples include setting an intention of becoming a more peaceful or loving person, to find out what God’s plan is for a certain aspect of your life, it could be to become more open to receiving Gods love, to improve a relationship with someone in particular, to grow your business, to be a better parent, to become more present, etc. The sky is the limit here and there are no right or wrong intentions (assuming the intention is positive).

Part 3: Solitude

Now that we have opened our hearts to receiving and let our intentions be known, create space for God to move and to receive his divine guidance.  To do this, try to keep the mind still and allow for God to speak.  Although it takes time and practice to discern between our own thoughts and what God is speaking to us, when it comes from God there will be a deep knowing that is undeniable.  It will be as if the thought emerged from the stillness rather than from our mind.  Sometimes this can be a thought, but it is often be a feeling or a “knowing”.  Almost as if we had known it all along but had to shut our mind off for it to be understood.

1 Corinthians 15:57 – We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.

Philippians 4:19 – And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus

Psalm 4:4 – Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.

• Don’t set any kind of expectation
• If we are in the wrong frame of mind, we will not receive any guidance
• It takes practice to master this and even those who devote their lives to it will experience times when their frame of mind is off and they are unable to receive guidance
• This is all part of the experience and should be accepted with love, rather than fought or forced
• God is always trying to speak to us, our state of being and frame of mind are what inhibit us from hearing