GRATITUDE

As an American living abroad, this time of year brings to mind family and giving thanks, or another buzz word, GRATITUDE. 

GRATITUDE is the antidote to foreboding joy. Maybe you aren’t familiar with the phrase that Brene Brown uses, foreboding joy. Basically it is two very different emotions that many of us experience simultaneously. There is that delicious moment when things feel so good, and your heart swells with warmth and joy. Right on its heels is that thought “uh, oh, this feels too good, something bad is going to happen,” and you are convinced the other shoe is going to drop. GRATITUDE on a regular basis will help you stop that bad habit of immediately thinking the other shoe is going to drop. 

Practicing GRATITUDE is how we acknowledge that there’s enough and that we’re enough. Most of us could use a lot of help in believing that we’re enough, so this is a practice that I recommend not just for this time of year.

Three GRATITUDE practices that I suggest for my clients to choose from are:

• GRATITUDE journals
• GRATITUDE jars
• Family GRATITUDE rituals

There’s no wrong way to keep a GRATITUDE journal, but here are some general instructions as you get started. Write down up to three things for which you feel grateful. The physical record is important—don’t just do this in your head. The things you list can be relatively small in importance (“The tasty sandwich I had for lunch today.”) or relatively large (“My sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy.”). The goal of the exercise is to remember a good event, experience, person, or thing in your life—then enjoy the good emotions that come with it.

Here are some additional tips if you chose to try a GRATITUDE journal. Be as specific as possible. Go for depth and details over a superficial list of many things. Write regularly. Whether you write daily, every other day, or weekly, commit to a regular time to journal, then honor that commitment.

A GRATITUDE jar is a visual reminder of all the blessings in our lives. Essentially, it is a place to record and store everything you’re thankful for. Whether it’s a person, a kind act or a positive detail in your everyday life, write it down on a slip of paper and stick it in your GRATITUDE jar. One advantage is the ease and convenience of being able to write your GRATITUDE slip whenever and wherever you like and add it to the jar at the end of the day.

Creating a family GRATITUDE ritual was something I first did before Thanksgiving when my daughter was small. We brought in a big branch and put it in a pot, and then had everyone write something they were thankful for on a paper ‘leaf’ and attach it to the branch creating a ‘thanks’giving tree.

But family GRATITUDE rituals don’t need to be reserved for this time of year. They can be personalized for your family needs too. They could take the form of going around the table and saying one thing you are thankful for every Friday (or every night), or posting a photo in a family group chat weekly of something you are GRATEFUL for, etc.

Not every attempt to trigger GRATITUDE will be meaningful to every child. Some of them can experience GRATITUDE fatigue, where they say the same things over and over again if parents are not clever or varied enough in their questions or rituals.

So Ms. Carter at the Greater Good Center suggests letting children invent a ritual for the family to adopt. It could be an original grace or a different way to frame dinner-table discussions. Regardless of the form, getting you and your family members to focus on the positive and good in your life, will attract more of the positive and good into your life. Why don’t you give it a try?