Denise Svajlenko's Blog: Joyful Life - Posts Tagged "gratitude"
Gratitude
I have often wondered how we learn to adopt an attitude of gratitude. If we are fortunate, we are taught in our childhood to say thank you by our parents, teachers, and other role models. Being genuinely appreciative and grateful is a life lesson that is learned over time, and one that most of us don’t practice often enough. The textbook definition of gratitude is thankfulness or gratefulness, from the Latin word gratus. Pleasing and thankful, is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, to the giver of said gifts. Why is gratitude so important in our life and how do we adopt a true attitude of gratitude?
Subject-matter experts and spiritual gurus who have written on this topic, inform us that we need to trade expectation for appreciation and that gratitude is a prerequisite for a happy life. They claim that the road to a happy life is living in moments, and not days, weeks, months, or years. When we learn to live our daily life with an attitude of gratitude, then we don’t see as many obstacles and challenges. And when we are confronted with difficulties in our lives, the ability to be thankful becomes essential.
Best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, who wrote the book “The Happiness Project”, asked herself what she wanted most in life and her answer was that she wanted to be happy. In response to her quest for happiness, she dedicated a year of her life to introducing and focusing on various new things to see what would bring her joy. She discovered that an attitude of gratitude was essential. Gretchen Rubin says that the path to happiness is “living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work, but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world”.
I fully relate to Gretchen Rubin’s insights about the daily struggle and hard work it takes to embrace an attitude of gratitude, particularly during times of struggle. Everyone has good and bad times in their life and our pathway to happiness is how we effectively deal with and overcome our challenges. We always have two choices with our all of our life predicaments. We can choose to be fearful, or we can choose to be thankful, even if we have to grapple to find a single reason to be thankful. The first step is finding just one simple thing that we are thankful for. For example, if someone who we love passes who was experiencing excruciating physical pain, we can be thankful that they are no longer suffering. If we are let go from a job that we weren’t passionate about anyway, we can be happy for the opportunity to find more meaningful work. If our children move far away to pursue their goals, we can be pleased to see them fulfill their dreams.
Sarah Ban Breathnach, who is known around the world for her insights on simplicity and has authored the best-selling book, “Simple Abundance”, tells us that being grateful is the first step on the path to joy. Her book details that the simpler that we make our lives, the more abundant that they become. She is quoted as saying that ”when we appreciate how much we have, we feel the urge to pare down, get back to basics, and learn what is essential for our happiness. We long to realize what is really important”. Sarah also introduced us to the Gratitude Journal that she created back in 1996. She taught us that our lives will be transformed, and we will begin to experience joyful living, when we record our daily moments of gratitude.
Dr. Robert Emmons is best known for his scientific analysis of gratitude and has been studying the effects of gratitude on physical health, on psychological well-being, and on our relationships with others. In his studies, he asked participants of all ages to keep gratitude journals for three weeks. His findings revealed participants as being physically better by having stronger immune systems, were less bothered by aches and pains, had lower blood pressure, exercised more, and were taking better care of their health. They also were sleeping longer and feeling more refreshed upon waking. The Psychological results proved that participants had higher levels of positive emotions, were more alert, alive, and awake, and had more joy and pleasure, and more optimism and happiness. Socially, participants felt more helpful, generous, compassionate, forgiving, and outgoing, and less lonely and isolated.
It took me a very long time to realize that all of the obstacles in my earlier life were really gifts. Overcoming my struggles taught me so many important life lessons that I feel so fortunate to have learned. I am now grateful for everything that has happened in my life, both good and bad. Enduring our difficult times helps us appreciate our blissful times even more. Best-selling author Anne Lamott is quoted as saying “as soon as you’re in gratitude, you watch out, world, because gratitude is some mysterious magnetic energy that just draws goodness to you. It draws people to you; it draws wonderful new life to you”. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanksgiving is that special day once a year, where we celebrate everything that we are thankful for. Research conducted by Dr. Emmons tells us that our physical, psychological, and social well-being improves when we count our blessings everyday. Some time ago, I adopted the ritual of writing down three things that I am grateful for (although to be perfectly honest, I don’t always practise this habit everyday). I discovered that on the days that I did and stopped focusing on what I didn’t have and started appreciating what I do have, my moods improved. I felt so much better physically and emotionally, as Dr. Emmons proclaimed from his extensive research and studies.
The best gift that we can give ourselves is adopting a daily attitude of gratitude and it is as simple as recording what we are grateful for everyday. A quote that I love that sums up the definition of genuine gratitude is “Being happy doesn’t mean you have it all. It simply means that you are thankful for all that you have”. How true. Let’s celebrate thanksgiving everyday.
Subject-matter experts and spiritual gurus who have written on this topic, inform us that we need to trade expectation for appreciation and that gratitude is a prerequisite for a happy life. They claim that the road to a happy life is living in moments, and not days, weeks, months, or years. When we learn to live our daily life with an attitude of gratitude, then we don’t see as many obstacles and challenges. And when we are confronted with difficulties in our lives, the ability to be thankful becomes essential.
Best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, who wrote the book “The Happiness Project”, asked herself what she wanted most in life and her answer was that she wanted to be happy. In response to her quest for happiness, she dedicated a year of her life to introducing and focusing on various new things to see what would bring her joy. She discovered that an attitude of gratitude was essential. Gretchen Rubin says that the path to happiness is “living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work, but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world”.
I fully relate to Gretchen Rubin’s insights about the daily struggle and hard work it takes to embrace an attitude of gratitude, particularly during times of struggle. Everyone has good and bad times in their life and our pathway to happiness is how we effectively deal with and overcome our challenges. We always have two choices with our all of our life predicaments. We can choose to be fearful, or we can choose to be thankful, even if we have to grapple to find a single reason to be thankful. The first step is finding just one simple thing that we are thankful for. For example, if someone who we love passes who was experiencing excruciating physical pain, we can be thankful that they are no longer suffering. If we are let go from a job that we weren’t passionate about anyway, we can be happy for the opportunity to find more meaningful work. If our children move far away to pursue their goals, we can be pleased to see them fulfill their dreams.
Sarah Ban Breathnach, who is known around the world for her insights on simplicity and has authored the best-selling book, “Simple Abundance”, tells us that being grateful is the first step on the path to joy. Her book details that the simpler that we make our lives, the more abundant that they become. She is quoted as saying that ”when we appreciate how much we have, we feel the urge to pare down, get back to basics, and learn what is essential for our happiness. We long to realize what is really important”. Sarah also introduced us to the Gratitude Journal that she created back in 1996. She taught us that our lives will be transformed, and we will begin to experience joyful living, when we record our daily moments of gratitude.
Dr. Robert Emmons is best known for his scientific analysis of gratitude and has been studying the effects of gratitude on physical health, on psychological well-being, and on our relationships with others. In his studies, he asked participants of all ages to keep gratitude journals for three weeks. His findings revealed participants as being physically better by having stronger immune systems, were less bothered by aches and pains, had lower blood pressure, exercised more, and were taking better care of their health. They also were sleeping longer and feeling more refreshed upon waking. The Psychological results proved that participants had higher levels of positive emotions, were more alert, alive, and awake, and had more joy and pleasure, and more optimism and happiness. Socially, participants felt more helpful, generous, compassionate, forgiving, and outgoing, and less lonely and isolated.
It took me a very long time to realize that all of the obstacles in my earlier life were really gifts. Overcoming my struggles taught me so many important life lessons that I feel so fortunate to have learned. I am now grateful for everything that has happened in my life, both good and bad. Enduring our difficult times helps us appreciate our blissful times even more. Best-selling author Anne Lamott is quoted as saying “as soon as you’re in gratitude, you watch out, world, because gratitude is some mysterious magnetic energy that just draws goodness to you. It draws people to you; it draws wonderful new life to you”. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanksgiving is that special day once a year, where we celebrate everything that we are thankful for. Research conducted by Dr. Emmons tells us that our physical, psychological, and social well-being improves when we count our blessings everyday. Some time ago, I adopted the ritual of writing down three things that I am grateful for (although to be perfectly honest, I don’t always practise this habit everyday). I discovered that on the days that I did and stopped focusing on what I didn’t have and started appreciating what I do have, my moods improved. I felt so much better physically and emotionally, as Dr. Emmons proclaimed from his extensive research and studies.
The best gift that we can give ourselves is adopting a daily attitude of gratitude and it is as simple as recording what we are grateful for everyday. A quote that I love that sums up the definition of genuine gratitude is “Being happy doesn’t mean you have it all. It simply means that you are thankful for all that you have”. How true. Let’s celebrate thanksgiving everyday.
Joyful Life
A weekly blog of stories and essays about living a joyful life.
- Denise Svajlenko's profile
- 6 followers
