Part 1 of What science tells us about gratitude’s benefits

“Preliminary findings suggest that those who regularly practice grateful thinking do reap emotional, physical, and interpersonal benefits”. (Source) p.11

What evidence is there that practicing gratitude will yield positive benefits? And what are the benefits that we can hope to gain when we invest some of our personal energy resources in cultivating gratitude?

Empirical research is building a growing case that (a) one can intentionally enhance one’s level of gratitude in a way to endures over time and (b) increasing one’s level of gratitude causally leads to a set of benefits. The research also shows that this applies to varied populations – from college students to people suffering from chronic illness.

One of the most significant benefits of practicing gratitude is that it adds to people’s happiness. Some research suggest that it can increase the level of happiness 25%.

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We’ve been speaking of gratitude including experience of an internal affirmation we are undeservedly the recipients of goodness, of grace.

This is a heartfelt, impactful week for many in Austin. A dear friend has passed who spread grace amongst us, bringing light and lightness to others, all the while sharing meaningful life-lessons with each encounter. For Margaret, from childhood and throughout her life, simply waking up to each new day was, in and of itself, an act of grace. She is so far the only person I’ve known who appeared to truly live her very life IN gratitude.

Despite the challenge of a congenital major heart condition, (which eventually necessited a heart transplant and probably causing a lifetime of constant pain), this truly beautiful woman in spirit and in fact greeted each and every new day with a resilient, lovely presence as the miracle it actually was for her.

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Part 4 of Exploring the Shape and Texture of Gratitude

“The disposition to experience gratitude, or gratefulness, is the tendency to feel gratitude frequently, in appropriate ways in appropriate circumstances. A person with the disposition to feel grateful has established a worldview that says, in effect, that all of life is a gift, gratuitously given. Although we cannot in any direct way be grateful, we can cultivate gratefulness by structuring our lives our minds, and our words in such a way as to facilitate awareness of gratitude-inducing experiences and labeling them as such.” (Source) p.187

Gratitude is a feeling that arises in the moment - an emotional response to a situation that is perceived to be good. Gratitude as an emotion is dependent on a stimulus – on us recognizing that we’ve been the beneficiary of something good. Gratitude as a feeling is also not something we can “will” into being. Gratitude - like all emotions - is fleeting.

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Part 3 of Exploring the Shape and Texture of Gratitude

Gratitude = A sense of thankfulness and joy in response to a gift, whether the gift be a tangible benefit from a specific other or a moment of peaceful bliss evoked by natural beauty
(Source) p. 554

Gratitude can be personal – directed towards a specific individual for a specific gift or good. Gratitude can also be transpersonal – directed towards God, a higher power, to the cosmos. In this sense gratitude is similar to Maslow’s peak experience. It is the experience of openness and connection to the whole that we sometimes experience in nature, or when we are moved by a beautiful piece of music, or the sight of a young child splashing in the water …

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Part 2 of Exploring the Shape and Texture of Gratitude

In our previous post we looked at four factors that help shape the contours of our gratitude: how strongly we are feeling gratitude, how often we experience it, how many parts of our life we extend our gratitude to, and how many people we include in our feelings of gratitude for each “good” we perceive in our life. Drawing on the work of Robert Emmons and David Steindtl-Rast, here are a few more concepts and distinctions that help give us a feel for the shape and texture of gratitude. This more nuanced feel is helpful when we contemplate how to grow in gratitude.

Head and heart

“Gratefulness is a knowing awareness that we are the recipients of goodness. … gratitude requires contemplation and reflection.” Robert Emmons

“Our intellectual focus is sharpened and our emotional response intensified in the act of (spontaneous or deliberate, but in either case willing) appreciation that we call gratitude”. David Steindl-Rast

Gratitude involves acknowledging that there are indeed goods and gifts in our life. It is an internal affirmation that we are undeservedly the recipients of goodness – of gifts that are indeed “gratuitous”, grace.

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Part 1 of Exploring the Shape and Texture of Gratitude

How grateful do you think you are? Are you more grateful than you were a year ago? If you were to intentionally try and increase your level of gratitude, how will you know that you’ve actually become more grateful? Quite simply, what exactly does “more” mean in the case of gratitude?

Gratitude is far too complex and multi-faceted to be fully captured by a simple “gratitude meter”. Scientific work on measuring gratitude nevertheless provides us with some useful insight into its shape and texture. And it offers us a useful tool to “take our gratitude pulse”, giving us a way to calibrate our current reality with regards to gratitude.

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“Water is the elixir of life.” - Artharva Veda

We’re speaking of remarkable impacts of the cultivation of Gratitude and Gratefulness. A somewhat magical word is striking a sweet sound around this for me: Elixir. Is Gratitude an immediately available Life Elixir for those willing to sip?

Elixir – quintessence or absolute embodiment of anything; alchemical preparation formerly believed to be capable of prolonging life; sovereign remedy; having the power to cure all ills; an underlying principle; of transmutative properties.

How often the simplest aspects of life gift us the most - readily, and unexpectedly. For me, a natural Austin waterfall hidden down a 10-minute, heavily wooded trail became such a gift-giver. My first short trek with my Zen sangha to our Four Seasons Zazen meditation has became an elixir with a now repeating gratitude-high for me with each changing season.

The slightest recall of the next date at the waterfall now stirs gratitude for me - approaching what I believe the 17th Century Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Massieu meant when he said: “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” My friends from the sangha who are my companions through each season and every Sunday have also become a treasured memory of the heart.

What, and who, creates such heart-felt memories for you?

“Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change people’s lives.” – Robert Emmons

Imagine that there is one thing that could

• provide a shortcut to greater happiness
• serve as an antidote to the ravages of regret, envy and resentment
• improve your physical well-being
• enhance your interpersonal connections
• cultivate peace of mind in the midst of life’s inevitable challenges

Too good to be true? Yes, it does almost sound like the proverbial snake oil! However, science, philosophy, and spirituality, all in different ways, underwrite this wonder “drug”. It is called “gratitude”. With this promise, it is no wonder that the prescription to keep a “gratitude journal” pops up everywhere.

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I will address this question noting the patterns in my own life seemingly optimally leading me to this specific Nexus Point in time, community, and business endeavor in such an integrated, congruent way. Serendipitous, yes. It also seems there is a natural order at work underpinning all this. I’d like to know more about how this is working and who else is experiencing such.

1. Optimal human functioning … flourishing … excellence … thriving. A life well-lived… and happiness too! Like Melinda, this or some derivative of it, is what my business-owner and executive clients ultimately seek at point of entry – though they don’t always recognize the NAME they eventually use for this. What they do know is MORE is no longer the main ideal they seek. Optimally functioning for me now is resting in the pleasant realization I’ve never actually experienced my work as labor, and that somehow miraculously, all my additional major interests also directly support and enrich my primary professional interests.

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I can try and answer this question by looking at the point of intersection for the following threads:

1. Optimal human functioning … flourishing … excellence … thriving . a life well-lived… and happiness too! That - or some version of it - is what my coaching clients would say they are looking for. This would suggest that I have some idea – or am expected to have some idea – of how to support them in their efforts to move closer to the “desired” state for them.

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