The Power of Gratitude
What is Gratitude?
A member of the Wise Humanity Community recently posted this question:
I'm interested in exploring the source of gratitude - is it a mindset? - is it an emotion generated straight from the heart? How/when do our minds become conscious of it? How does one cultivate more of it?
This is one of our favorite topics at Wise Humanity. Let’s dive in.
Humans have always known that gratitude is essential to enjoying life. Gratitude has long been a focal point in wisdom traditions around the globe, and now it’s the subject of modern scientific research as well. Studies show that this mysterious emotional response has tremendous benefits for mental and even physical health. It’s associated with decreased stress, better relationships, increased creativity and resilience, better decision-making, better sleep, better cardiovascular health, better immunity… pretty much better everything.
What are the ingredients in this magic potion? It’s comprised of all three elements mentioned in the question: a mindset, an emotion, and a practice. And all three can be challenging.
Let’s start with the mindset of gratitude.
Thinking grateful thoughts means focusing on, and appreciating, something we already have.
Our minds don’t do that naturally.
Focusing on what we already have can seem boring, unnecessary, and pointless. We know we should be grateful for the roof over our heads. But do you feel drawn to thinking about that? Did I mention it can feel boring?
This bias is exacerbated by our culture of striving, competition and acquisition. We love to focus on the future and we’re trained to be discontent. Our minds play a constant thrum of “not enough.”
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Melody Beatty
So how do we turn our minds toward gratitude? There are many paths. You can experiment to find what works for you.
Photo by Alina Vilchenko on Pexels
A common and well-researched path is keeping a gratitude journal—writing down five things every day that you are grateful for. This short shift in focus can powerfully change your mood and outlook, because when you start to pay attention to something, it grows in your awareness.
Have you ever noticed what happens to your awareness when you’re shopping for a certain item? Let’s say you’re planning to buy a black coat. When you walk down the street, you start looking at other people’s coats to consider what kind you might want. Suddenly, you see black coats everywhere. You had never noticed before, but every second person on the street is wearing a black coat.
The same thing happens when go through the day looking for things you can write about in your gratitude journal. You find yourself surrounded by acts of generosity and strokes of good fortune that you hadn’t noticed before. And when you record them in your journal, you find those moments of the day glowing in your memory. Your thoughts about your life have changed.
Now let’s turn from thoughts to emotions. It can be easy to think gratitude, but harder to feel it.
Many people have trouble accessing the emotion of gratitude, but when they find it, they recognize it. It’s a complex and very distinct feeling. It wells up from inside. It brings a sense of glowing warmth, expansion, and lightness. Profound gratitude sometimes draws tears, and can include elements of humility, wonder, awe, and relief.
If you keep a gratitude journal, take your time to let the feeling sink in. Close your eyes and let the appreciation travel from your head to inside your chest. Breathe and feel the goodness of the things you’re grateful for. Experiment, and keep experimenting, until you find what works for you. Don’t let the journaling become perfunctory or rote.
When I was younger, I’ll admit, gratitude was not a familiar feeling for me. The word “gratitude” mostly evoked the feeling of obligation I felt around writing thank-you notes… or, more accurately, the feeling of guilt I felt about not writing thank-you notes.
It turns out that young people are generally not prone to gratitude. You may have noticed this in teenagers. So I guess I wasn’t alone.
And even now that I know gratitude, it’s an experience I have to cultivate and maintain through practice. If I don’t practice, I can lose the habit. But when I remember to practice consciously for even one day, I feel much happier.
So now let’s talk about the practice.
It helped me to start small. I started by appreciating my bed in the morning, just savoring the warmth, safety and comfort. I wasn’t grateful to anyone in particular for that. I just gave myself a few minutes to receive the gift.
One day, my friend told me she was grateful for the sunrise in the morning. At first I couldn’t relate. The sunrise, really? Doesn’t that happen without anyone making an effort? Can’t we take that for granted? But the next time I saw the sunrise, I saw it anew. I thought of how many different factors have to align to allow me to see the sunrise. Literally the sun and the earth have to place themselves in the perfect spot, at the perfect time and angle, for the light to refract and put on a multicolored magic show that, in a sense, only I can see, because only I am seeing it from my exact vantage point. It’s such a quiet, sacred moment, and I’ve learned to savor it gratefully.
Especially during the early days of the pandemic, I made a practice of watching the sunrise daily.
“This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.”
– Maya Angelou
Look for moments in your day and elements in your life that call forth a feeling of appreciation, and make them your touchstones. You may find it helps to concentrate on the loving relationships in your life, or it may be easier to start with your cup of coffee in the morning. Try both! Try lots of different approaches. Variety itself is key.
It may help to think of the gifts in your life as big packages wrapped in paper and festive ribbons, brought to you in a birthday party by a loving friend. Let yourself feel the surprise of receiving something bigger than you expected.
Saying or writing the words “thank you” or “I am grateful for” may help you feel the emotion. You may try thinking of particular people, the universe, a creator, nature or the human community as your benefactor.
You can try using your body, perhaps kneeling and bowing your head, picturing the gifts of your life raining down on you, or looking up and spreading your arms to receive them. See what helps you access that inner feeling that you are present, open and allowing goodness in.
You can try including others in your daily gratitude practice. Gratitude check-ins can be fun with the family at dinner, or even at a meeting with colleagues.
“Without exception, every person [of the thousands] I interviewed who described themselves as joyful actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joyfulness to that practice.”
–Brené Brown
An especially powerful way to access your inner gratitude is to express it directly to a person who has helped you.
Think of someone who has had a positive impact on your life—a friend, relative, teacher, anyone. Write a couple of paragraphs about what they have given you. What exactly did they do, and how has it affected your life? Write a thank you. Then sit with the person, or videocall them, and read them your letter.
To see this practice in action, watch this “Science of Happiness” video. You’ll probably feel gratitude vicariously just by watching.
You may feel like you could never do what the people in this video do. But of course you can.
And once you step into a practice of gratitude, you’ll find it creates a virtuous cycle. Gratitude begets happiness, which in turn begets more gratitude and more happiness.
For an amazing true story about how gratitude builds on itself, read (or listen to) John Kralik’s 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Gratitude Changed My Life. At age 53, Kralik faced bankruptcy, got dumped by his girlfriend, and lived in a stew of anger and fear. But inspired by a lesson from his grandfather, he decided to write a thank-you note each day for a year.
He started with simple acknowledgments for Christmas gifts, and soon found that reaching out to people with positivity caused them to reach back out to him. He writes:
“By February so much instant karmic success had come onto my life that I was encouraged to begin sending thank yous in the direction of all my problems, which is to say, in every direction…to plant the seeds of appreciation everywhere.”
Kralik became the Johnny Appleseed of gratitude, and the fruit of that effort was astonishingly sweet. Read the book, for real.
Final Thoughts
When we consider gratitude as a practice, it’s interesting to note that the ancient Greeks thought of gratitude as a virtue. It’s not just a pleasure; it’s an act of strong character and generosity. It’s fundamental to friendship and a contribution to community.
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.”
—Cicero
Expressing gratitude connects you to the flow of life and to other people. You become less of a spectator and more of a participant. You feel more alive.
Allowing yourself to feel gratitude means accepting a gift with open arms, summoning the courage to be open, tolerating vulnerability. With gratitude, you let the gift reach its target: your heart.
Start a gratitude practice today. You’ll be grateful you did.
Gratitude is one of the fundamental principles in Wise Humanity programs. We just started the spring session of our 12-week course. The next cohort will start on the 24th of September. We also offer workshops to transform the workplace. Get in touch to learn more.
Thank you to Dr. Srikumar Rao and Preeta Bansal for first inspiring me to start a daily gratitude practice.
Subscribe to our newsletter and blog here.
