Gratitude
"The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving."- H.U. Westermayer
This year is the 400th Anniversary of when the pilgrims first celebrated thanksgiving together. Those pilgrims had suffered many hardships and losses. In fact, only about 50% of their population even survived the first winter. Yet they celebrated and gave thanks. There is a reason that centuries later, it is one of our country's most prominent holidays.
Before I wrote this I took a look at this picture from our office this week with all of the things that care members shared that they are grateful for in their life--and I found myself overwhelmed with a really amazing feeling.
That’s the thing about gratitude--when you feel it, it doesn’t just impact you. Feeling gratitude is truly is one of the most transformative things that you can do for your own life— but the thing about being thankful is that it impacts everyone who is near it. Even those people who have nothing to do with it experience a shift in their day, maybe in their life, just by witnessing it.
But most of us are in the habit of focusing on what is wrong that needs to be fixed. We are neurologically wired this way. For this reason, one new habit that I guarantee will radically change your life is one that brings more gratitude into it. In fact, I would dare be so bold to say that this shift is necessary to have a lasting positive change in your life.
Steps to a Life Transformed by Gratitude
Step 1: PRACTICE
Starting a Gratitude Practice
This means intentionally spending time every day to reflect on what you are grateful for.
Here are some ideas for how to do it:
Pick a time. Before you go to bed at night or when you first wake up in the morning are great times. It is great to say you will do it all day long, but you need to set aside time if you want to build the habit of being grateful.
Take a moment to reflect on your day and your life. Remember to not just think about things you are glad happened, but to actually feel the feeling of gratitude as well. This will get easier the more you do it--and if you are able, you might find that invoking the feeling first may make it easier to think of things to match.
Write down 10 things you are grateful for (or three things) or spend a set amount of time (1 minute or 5 minutes) writing down all the things you can think of that you are grateful for. A small journal set aside for this purpose beside your bed is a great anchor for the practice, but you can also use your notes app, a word document, or the back of an envelope. I also really like the Five Minute Journal App.
You will begin to experience immediate benefits to your mood and changes to your brain just by feeling gratitude. Also, the more and the longer you do this, the more you will find that you are grateful for all day long. Beware: if you are very attached to your cynical or persnickety personality, that will be at odds with this, and you will most likely find a reason to want to discontinue the practice.
Step 2: EXPRESS
Expressing gratitude out loud to others.
Oftentimes, we wonder what people will think if we tell them something we appreciate about them, so we left it unsaid. Other times we hold out because we worry that their egos will become too inflated, or subconsciously feel that it will shift the power dynamic in the relationship. So we fall into the trap of keeping it to ourselves, which is guaranteed to mean you are speaking more negatively than positively. When you have done step 1 and have a gratitude practice you will find highlighted more often things you are grateful for about others. Don't keep it to yourself. Saying those things out loud (or sending an email or text) will drastically affect the dynamic of your relationship. You will find that later when you need some extra grace it will be much easier for you, and them, to give it to yourself.
Step 3: REFLECT
Giving credit where credit is due.
If someone is in my life that I am grateful for, in addition to the act of consciously remembering how grateful I am for them (step 1), and being sure to let them know (step 2), I like to remember that God brought them into my life, and simply be grateful to God. There is a fullness that comes from this step, a fulfillment that can't come from people alone. It's a shift from a transactional reality to a deepened relationship with entirely another mind-boggling source of your extravagant abundance that can't be matched by anything else. This last step can really be placed before any of the other steps. It is optional, but I don't recommend leaving it out.