The Healing Powers of Gratitude

The instinctive state of mind we like to call “emotion” is one that even scientists know very little about. Our emotions are derived from our situations, relationships, moods, and so on and so forth. So, why is there little known about it and why do emotions have such a PROFOUND impact on our daily lives? While these questions may not be able to be answered for you just yet, scientists DO have theories on how they can begin putting the emotion puzzle pieces together. According to the authors from the article Emotions in Everyday Life, “Answering these fundamental questions about the frequency and centrality (i.e., interconnectedness) of emotions in everyday life is crucial to our understanding of human experience and may guide research and interventions in important ways. In the current research, we report the first “big data” account of how people actually experience emotions in real-time in their everyday life. Bringing together network science and emotion research for the first time, we use network analysis to elucidate interrelations between emotions. This approach provides new insights into our everyday emotional life.” (Trampe, Taquet, Quoidbach, 2015, para. 2). So, while we may not be able to have a full understanding of what emotions are and their level of impact on our thoughts and actions, we do know that as a human race we experience them and we experience them on very deep and powerful levels. The emotions we can and do experience are: joy, love, anxiety, satisfaction, alertness, hope, sadness, amusement, pride, disgust, anger, gratitude, guilt, fear, awe, offense, embarrassment, contempt. Today, I want to take some time to look at gratitude and how we can better incorporate this into our lives through a short mindful exercise everyday.

Before I share this mindful exercise, I want to bring to mind what gratitude really is and what it looks like. Gratitude is the act and quality of being thankful. It means that one is ready and willing to accept things in one’s life and show appreciation for them in return. One way to express gratitude is through the act of kindness. In order to have gratitude, one must be able to pause to notice these things (mindfully aware). Practicing gratitude is so important because it is a positive emotion that allows us to reduce the amount of things we take for granted and focus our energy on returning the kindness for the blessings we are receiving or have received. Gratitude can look like: sending a message thanking someone for their presence/relationship, giving someone a small token as a way of thanking them, lending a helping hand to one who usually helps us etc etc etc. And while gratitude is important to express to others, it also has many wonderful benefits for ourselves such as: reducing stress, improving sleep, boosting self-esteem and confidence, improves relationships, boosts performance, rewires your brain, makes you happier, heals and can even make your body physially feel better (lower blood pressure, reduce heart rate, etc). So why is gratitude only highlighted with Thanksgiving? Why is gratitude not taught and modeled more for those around us? These questions are for you to answer… My bet would be that gratitude is often forgotten because we are too damn busy go-go-going to stop and even notice all of the blessings around us.

Practicing Mindful Gratitude Exercise:

1. Pick one of your already formed daily habits and plan to add 2-3 minutes to this habit Ex: brushing your teeth
2. Before completing your daily habit (brushing your teeth), set down your phone and turn off all distractions around you.
3. Complete your habit in silence and work to become aware of the space around you, how you are feeling physically, what you are feeling emotionally. When you notice your mind start to drift to things from the past or worries of the future, focus back in on the task you are doing by thinking through the exact physical motions you are doing to complete this task. An example of this would be something like: I am no longer in my past nor focusing on my future. I am holding my green toothbrush and moving it in circular motions all around my mouth. I am tasting the minty fresh toothpaste I have chosen for today. I have already flossed so the last step in my process is to get my mouthwash and swish that around in my mouth
4. Once you have completed your task, either sit down, lay or stand in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and picture your 5 senses in your mind. Picture your nose smelling something. Your eyes seeing something. Your ears hearing something. Your skin feeling something. Your mouth tasting something. Can you clearly and vividly see each of those body parts (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin) when imagining the actions they are doing? If so, GREAT move on to step 5. If you can’t, add more details to your imagery setting. Ex: I am picturing myself lowering my head down and leaning in towards a shelf display to smell a candle at the store. The candle smells like fresh roses, fully bloomed on a nice summer day. Now can you more clearly see yourself using your nose to smell something? Great. Move on to step 5.
5. We are going to start at the bottom of our body and work our way up as we go, so we are going to start with our skin and the sense of touch. Picture in your mind something you LOVE to feel. Something that comforts you or relaxes you or even makes you feel good. Once you have a clear visual of that “thing” out loud remind yourself that you are grateful for that “thing” and ask yourself why. Ex: I am grateful for my dog’s soft fur, wet nose, and floppy ears because she is my child whom I love and adore and the touch of her fur comforts me and makes me feel good that I have such a great partner in crime.
6. Next we will move up to our mouth and the sense of taste. Picture in your mind something you LOVE to eat. Visualize that food and once again remind yourself that you are grateful for it and why you are grateful for it. Ex: I am grateful for yummy fluffy buttery mashed potatoes because my mom makes them homemade. They especially taste good when she makes them for Thanksgiving dinner with my family, one of my favorite times of the year.
7. Moving on to our nose and the sense of smell. Same principle here. Ex: I am grateful for the smell of my mom’s warm apple pies coming fresh out of the oven. I can smell the cinnamon and sugar juice that is coating the tart apples. I am thankful for that smell because my mom makes her pies from scratch and does a wonderful job doing so! The best pies I’ve ever had.
8. Second to last we have our ears. Same thing here.
9. And lastly, we have our eyes. Again, same thing here.
10. To wrap up this exercise, remind yourself out loud of the 5 things that you just listed that you were grateful for. And remind yourself of why overall that you are grateful for them. Ex: I am grateful for those 5 things because they relax me, make me smile, empower me and fill my belly LOL. Once you have completed that last step, slowly open your eyes and thank yourself for taking the time to pause and reflect on your life’s blessings. *repeat this 1+ times daily*

Works Cited

Trampe, Debra et al. “Emotions in Everyday Life.” PloS one vol. 10,12 e0145450. 23 Dec. 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145450