Gratitude is an expression of appreciation & cultivating a quality of being thankful. We all know the importance of thanking someone for a thoughtful gift or an act of kindness but practicing gratitude on a daily basis can have an amazing impact on our lives.
By practicing gratitude, we are training ourselves to feel the emotion of gratitude & rewiring our brains to see the good in life, rather than focusing on the negative.
It is easy to integrate into our lives but like everything it is about establishing a new habit & making a conscious decision & intention to do so on a daily basis.
I use a gratitude journal, where almost every day I write at least 3 things I am grateful for. Now to be honest some evenings have been late & boozy & I just play catch up the following night. And some days are just rotten, rough, dark days in which case I may skip it that day, knowing the next day will be better. I acknowledge the difficult day with an ‘even though, yesterday was tough, I am grateful today is a better day…’
The important thing is to try to write as often as possible. Some days it is easy to write lots of things down. And some days it’s really simple things like: I’m grateful for just being; for the kids; for the sun rising. Although actually it is usually less about material ‘stuff’ & more about gratitude for people & experiences that fill the pages.
I make gratitude journals for friends & clients scattered with quotes which I hope will inspire them or make them laugh. It started when a dear friend celebrated a ‘big’ birthday & not one for collecting things & someone who was more than capable of buying whatever he needed whenever he wanted, I decided to make him a Gratitude Journal. He said it was one of the best presents he’d ever had & so a tradition started.
I love finding a nice book & appropriate quotes to fill it just for that person. Each journal is unique & I find it indulges my creativity & allows me a few precious hours of flow.
Flow is a powerful state in which we are totally focused on a single task, totally absorbed & immersed in doing something that time flies by but strangely also seems to standstill. It is an amazingly powerful place to be in & wonderful for our brains.
There are other ways to practice gratitude though too, it doesn’t have to be journaling. You can create a Gratitude Jar which you fill jotted notes on bits of paper & empty at a later date, reliving some marvelous memories.
We have a one & a few months after arriving back in the UK, we emptied ours. It was full of beautiful memories of our time in Bangkok. Some of these moments were small, almost insignificant but when we opened the jar & revisited them it was absolutely wonderful. We took a photo to remember these moments, threw the scraps away & started again.
It is such a simple idea & can be implemented anywhere: at school, at home, in the office. All it takes is an empty jam jar, some scraps of paper & an intention to record a moment in time for reflection months later. These are the moments that create marvellous memories.
Another thing we often do sat around the dinner table or in bed during goodnight snuggles is to reflect on 3 things we are grateful for. My son once piped up, ‘Breakfast, lunch & dinner!’ & repeated it for weeks until the laughs died down! All you have to do is think about 3 things, people, experiences that made you feel happy & thankful.
Rose, bud thorn is a twist on this idea. The rose is something that made you happy today; the bud is something kind you did or saw someone do or something you are looking forward to; the thorn is something you would like on reflection to have done differently. The thorn is not a moment of recrimination, rather reflection on how that moment could have turned out differently.
But why practice gratitude? Well I started my daily practice when I was diagnosed with severe agitated depression & having just been through one of the hardest years of my adult life, I honestly think that the daily practice of gratitude has helped rewire my brain to see things more positively.
It hasn’t completely safeguarded against some pretty ghastly days but I never said it was a miracle cure! I honestly think that alongside (an almost) daily practice of yoga & meditation, these 3 practices have helped me maintain some perspective, a good sense of humour (often a dark sense of humour has been required) & a wide collection of coping mechanisms that have definitely helped navigate the mucky waters of an international relocation & divorce.
The miracles of modern science mean we can now see how our brain works & there is a huge body of evidence that supports how mindfulness, meditation, gratitude & flow can literally rewire the brain. MRI scans show different parts of the brain lighting up in people who practice regularly & there is a mounting body of evidence to support the claims.
The benefits of gratitude are many but here are a few of the highlights:
- Makes you feel happier
- Less anxiety
- Reduces depression
- Improves self-acceptance
- Increases forgiveness
- More optimistic
- Less materialistic
- Increases self-esteem
- Improves your relationships
- Makes you feel healthier
- Improves your sleep
- Increases energy levels
- Bouncing back from challenges is easier
- Improves decision making
- Increases productivity
And so, I am grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences of gratitude with you & why I believe you should invest in a nice book & start today.
For more information onusing gratitude as part of your daily wellbeing practice email Alex at alex@myananda.co.uk