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The
Transformative Power of Gratitude By Kim Ridley, www.beliefnet.com Gratitude
can be a powerfully transformative practice. Psychologists, Robert
Emmons of U.C. Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami
have found that practicing gratitude can actually improve emotional and
physical well-being. Their ongoing research project on gratitude and
thankfulness has found that people who keep weekly gratitude journals
had fewer physical symptoms, exercised more, had a better outlook on
life and were more likely to reach their goals. People with
neuromuscular disease who practiced daily gratitude “had more
high-energy positive moods,” felt connected to others, and felt more
positive about life in comparison to a control group. “Practicing
gratitude helps people extract the most out of life,” Emmons says.
“People can also experience an overall shift to a more benevolent view
of the world. I think it’s kind of a spiritual shift for some because
it makes them more aware
of life as a gift.” To
help strengthen my own “gratitude muscle,” I asked Emmons and
several inspiring practitioners to share their suggestions. Here are
daily practices anyone can try. 1.
See The Giver Behind The Gift. “We ask people to focus everyday
on a particular person who provided them with a benefit,” Emmons says.
“That’s really what gratitude is. It’s not just something you’re
happy about. It could be anyone from the spouse who made you a perfect
cup of coffee this morning to the person who bagged your groceries.” 2.
Ask Yourself Three Questions Everyday. “A powerful way to
cultivate gratitude is to focus on what is really happening in our
lives, rather than falling into the traps of complaining and drama,”
says Gregg Krech, co-founder of the ToDo Institute in Monkton, Vermont
and author of Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art
of Self Reflection. The basic practice of Naikan, which translates
to “inside-looking,” consists of asking oneself three questions
everyday: “What have I received today? What have I given? What trouble
have I caused?” While Naikan doesn’t deny the difficult parts of our
lives, it puts things into perspective, says Krech, who asks himself
these three questions every evening. “When
I list everything I received and then everything I gave each day, what I
have in the giving column is always so much shorter than what’s in the
receiving column,” he says. “As we become aware that we’ve
received so much more than we’ve given, not only does that cultivate
gratitude, it also cultivates often a sense of wanting to give something
back to the world.” 3.
Practice Even When You Don’t Feel Like It. “One of the
mistakes people often make in our culture is thinking you have to feel
grateful to practice gratitude,” says psychologist Miriam Greenspan,
author of, Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of
Grief, Fear, and Despair. “You can practice anytime when you feel
sorrow, great anxiety over a parent’s imminent death, or if you have a
disabled child. It’s whatever one can muster at these points as a
prayer of gratitude—okay, I’m still breathing, or I have friends
who care about me tips the experience from being immersed unmindfully in
one’s suffering to moving into the present moment with a more holistic
perspective. We see there is suffering, but there is also this
gratitude, and we can hold them together.” 4.
Make “Thank you” Your Mantra. “Every moment offers an
opportunity for thanks,” says Nancy Hathaway, senior dharma teacher at
the Kwan Um Zen School and a family mindfulness consultant in Blue Hill,
Maine. She uses “thank you” as a mantra to return to the present
moment. “On the first day of spring, I was raking the gravel off the
grass. It was hard, and I was starting to complain to myself,”
Hathaway says. “When I caught myself thinking, I switched over to
‘thank you.’ I remembered I really wanted to rake, and I wanted
springtime. Gratitude practice for me is about letting go of thinking
and welcoming in the present moment.” 5.
Create A Simple Family Ritual. “In our family, every evening when
we have dinner, we say our thank you’s” says Greenspan. “It’s
not a formal prayer of any kind, but just what we’re grateful for in
the moment, and that’s all. It brings us back, it’s a touchstone to
the miracles of life that we may have been overlooking.” 6. Bow To Life. “I do three bows in the morning,” Hathaway says. “The first bow is to myself as part of the universe. The second bow is to my family, children, and friends to acknowledge and appreciate them. The third is bowing to the universal life force and what is. Doing this helps me let go of controlling, and instead open to the flow of life.” Kim Ridley, www.beliefnet.com
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