The Most Underrated Tool for a Better Life

That's a big claim, but I'm going to tell you 3 reasons why Gratitude should be the #1 tool in your Mindset Toolbelt. I'll also give you 2 ways to get started.

Hello to the new readers here! Thank you for joining us in this bi-weekly party to examine and celebrate the work we do as humans to keep showing up and savoring life as best we can, even in the face of life and its notorious curve balls. A reminder to everyone reading this - I so appreciate you being here, and if you like what you read, please consider forwarding to friends or sharing a link or a quote on social (or a quote with a link!).

On to today’s topic: Gratitude.
The word may conjure up visions of Thanksgiving (a holiday “allegedly” for giving thanks for all that we have…whether or not if that’s still how it’s celebrated, IDK.) Or maybe it reminds you of saying grace at the dinner table. But what does Gratitude look like in real life? And how can it be used to actually change our mental landscape?

Here’s the proposition I’m suggesting—when used regularly and with intention, a Gratitude practice can provide big results:
1) …in less time and money than therapy;
2) …with a less strict routine than what is suggested for meditation;
3) …and big results that nearly rival the efficacy of psychedelic therapy as a tool for getting our stuck brain to make big shifts in perceptions of life and our daily existence. (I hope you know am inserting subliminal [BAM] and [brain exploding] emojis here.)

A Gratitude practice helps you see what’s in front of you, helps you focus on what’s real. Reminds you of beauty and, I daresay, the sublime in the everyday. This is important because what we think of as our “life” is subject to interpretation. Yes, our lives are mere perception. And perception is about choice. You’ve heard the saying, “I choose Joy” or “the glass is half empty or half full, depending on how you see it.” So, sure, deep down we know life is about how you look at it, but—on a day to day basis—do we take an active role and stop to act with intentionality? Not always.

That’s because routine is easy and change is hard. And the change it takes to get out of negative mental patterns can feel like swimming out of a riptide.

The surprising thing about this practice that I keep hyping up is that, yes, it can be astoundingly effective, but it’s also easy. Like, so easy. And as with most things in life, the easier something is, the more we take it for granted, dismissing its potential efficacy. “If it’s so easy, everyone would do it,” say the doubters.
No. Because, change. is. hard. And even if we’re stuck in the painful muck of anxiety or overwhelm, sometimes we’d rather stay in pain because we know it. To change means to venture into the unknown, and the unknown is scary.

So, for the sake of your spirit (and without further ado), let me introduce you to a Gratitude Practice.

Photo by Laura Vinck on Unsplash

The Science of Gratitude

First, here are some facts that are hard to ignore:

Results from a 2003 study showed that keeping a daily gratitude journal led to better sleep, reduction in physical pain, a greater sense of wellbeing, and a better ability to handle change¹ (wait, did someone just say Resilience?).

A study in 2008 using functional MRIs showed that subjects experiencing gratitude were influencing the hypothalamus, the part of the brain responsible for sleep, eating and stress in real time.² Gatitude also stimulates the area where we produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that interacts with our pleasure, satisfaction and motivation centers.³

So it works. What’s the catch?

No catch. Now, I’ll show you how easy it can be.

Two Ways to Get Started

There are many, many ways to practice gratitude. Many. But rather than overwhelm you with options, I’m going to share the ones that have worked best and easiest for me.

1. There is a book called the Five Minute Journal. I have two. It provides daily prompts (the same every day) designed to gently open your brain to a new perception. The prompts are simple but still effective in nudging us toward a shift in how we perceive our days and how we show up for our lives. Nudge away, I say! I like this because it’s a gentle guide and helps us stay on track, regularly.

2. Then there’s another, lo-fi technique I’ve used at various times. It’s totally free and it definitely works. What’s not to love? Get some index cards (or a journal, post-it notes, or scrap pater, what have you) and every night before bed write five things you’re grateful for. And for a week, don’t repeat anything on the list. By the end of the week, you’ll be finding beauty in unexpected places. And once you begin to see the mundane in a new way, it’s hard to go back. Meaning, you’ve started to change the way your mind works, in a very positive way.

Why It Matters

If I haven’t sold you on the value of a gratitude practice by now, maybe I never will.
And I’m ok with that. But because I care about your soul’s happiness (really), let me offer a slightly broader view about how and why gratitude is valuable for our mental state and for our lives overall.

Because of Thoreau.

I’ll explain.

Henry David Thoreau was a part of the Transcendentalism movement of American philosophers and writers in the 19th century who embraced simplicity (amid the Industrial Revolution, to note); held a reverence for nature, and valued intuitive insight over science. They saw the divine in the every day rather than assuming they had to wait for heaven (in rebuke of puritanical Protestantism, methinks). It was “an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.⁴”

Transcendentalists (the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott and other people I could imagine hanging out with) understood conscious action in living, choosing how to show up and deciding where to put focus. In Walden, Thoreau ventures to strip down life to see what he could find. Which it seems was (spoiler alert) the beauty in the every day and gratitude for simple moments. It was from this intention in choosing how to approach life, and the dedication to appreciate its moments, that he could savor it fully.

Though of course Thoreau says it best:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

With that I’ll leave you to find the sublime in our daily existence.
And when possible, may you suck the marrow out of life.

xx
Mary

1. The Five-Minute Journal

2. The Five-Minute Journal

3. Health Direct

4. Encyclopedia Britannica