Gratitude and Thanksgiving
We may find some benefit during this Thanksgiving holiday to look at how we may potentially incorporate a powerful spiritual principle that has been traditionally associated with this holiday. This principle is gratitude, and it has the power to facilitate healing, strengthen relationships, and improve personal resiliency.
Gratitude is considered synonymous with appreciation and has been defined as:
- The recognition and appreciation of a gift (Emmons, 2004).
- Not only a feeling but also an enduring vision, a mindset of thankfulness for gifts received, which relates the core experience of spirituality (Kurtz and Ketcham, 1992).
- (Can be understood as) An emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a coping response, and as a constructive approach to interpersonal relations (Emmons & McCullough, 2004; Gulliford et al.,2013; Nelson, 2009).
Cultivating gratitude is about consciously reshaping our awareness to bring to the forefront the things and people that we value; that which brings us happiness, joy, or a sense of meaning or purpose. When things are going at their worst, our ability to bring mindfulness and appreciation to the sources of light in our lives can have incredibly positive effects that can assist us in pushing forward. Great thinkers, writers, artists, philosophers, and religious traditions throughout history have also recognized the power of gratitude as in the following examples:
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”-Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Gratitude is one of the strongest and most transformative states of being. It shifts your perspective from lack to abundance and allows you to focus on the good in your life, which in turn pulls more goodness into your reality.” – Jen Sincero
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” – Zig Ziglar
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ― Epicurus
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” – Aesop
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them” – John F. Kennedy
Research has shown that gratitude helps improve interpersonal relationships, improve one’s quality of life, promote more adaptive coping strategies, and has one of the strongest links with mental health than any other variable with the strongest link to life satisfaction (Chen, 2016; Park et al., 2004). The good thing is that although it can be certianly difficult depending upon one’s circumstances gratitude can be cultivated with practices that have been identified to assist in the process of being able to pull the good things back into our awareness for sources of strength and as a way to improve, deepen, and strengthen our relationships.
- Put time aside each day to reflect on what you are grateful for.
- Reflect on the positive things and people you have now that you didn’t before.
- Bring kindness to others.
- Review past challenges and view present and future challenges as opportunities.
- Make a deliberate choice to express your gratitude for someone in your life (make this into a pattern).
- Give to others daily.
- Intentionally focus more on what you have and not on what you don’t.