Choosing Gratitude
Making the choice to be grateful can increase present moment happiness.
2020 has been a challenging year people around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many to change the ways that they go about their lives. Family systems are adapting to new demands such as childcare, eldercare, and working from home. Business systems are adapting to remote working models. Social systems are adapting to less face-to-face interaction and increased demands for community supports. Many people are feelings overwhelmed and stressed out from all these changes. This is a time where I think it is important to remind people that choosing gratitude can be an antidote to help cope with this challenging time in history.
Gratitude is an experience of abundance, with awareness that one is the recipient of a good gift from a giver (Watkins, Van Gelder, & Frias, 2009). The giver can be yourself, another person, or the world.
One aspect of our lives that we do have control over is choosing to be grateful. Why choose to be grateful? Choosing to be grateful is a strategy to help cope with the difficulties of life and maximize the positive parts of life. When you choose to be grateful, you are actively thinking about the gifts you have received from life. I may think to myself, ‘I am grateful to have a loving family,’ or ‘I am grateful to have air in my lungs.’ The point is that I am actively thinking about things that are positive in my world. Research has shown that grateful remembering as a practice can bolster present happiness and hope for the future (Wityliet et al., 2019). It is Pretty remarkable that one’s thoughts can influence their happiness and hope so directly.
Now I am about to talk briefly about the brain. Disclaimer, my argument for how the brain works is an oversimplification of a very complex system but I think it does help to understand this concept.
Thinking about positives is not necessarily how the brain works. To put it simply, the brain is wired to solve problems. It was evolutionarily advantageous, in the short-term, for the brain to solve immediate problems. For example, if I saw a snowstorm rolling into the valley I live in, my brain would automatically begin thinking of ways to deal with the problems ahead (freezing temperatures, lack of visibility, etc.). My brain would tell me to start gathering firewood and finding shelter so that I can stay warm and dry. The problem-solving brain helped our ancestors to survive in a dangerous and challenging world. The modern world is very different than the world of our ancestors and therefor the problems are different. Problems today look more like: How can I help to decrease racial inequalities? How do I balance dividing time between my career, friends, family, community, etc.? These problems do not have simple answers and are often perpetual problems, meaning they come and go throughout our lives.
Our brains have an incredible knack for identifying problems. In fact, we are so adept at it that it can crowd everything else out. No wonder it can feel overwhelming to be a human! This is where choosing to think about things you are grateful for can help. Choosing gratitude actively disrupts the automatic problem-focused thought patterns and engages the brain in a way that promotes calmness, happiness, and hope. By choosing to be grateful you are choosing to attend to the things in your life that are positive. This is filling the body with a sense that things are okay and helping to ground yourself in the present moment.
I challenge you to start choosing gratitude daily and see how it impacts your life. You can start a gratitude journal, you can write things you are grateful for on your bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker, or you can create a gratitude ritual that feels good for you. There is no right way to do it. Additionally, it is important to remember that expressions of gratitude do not have to be towards material things. Gratitude can be towards relationships, the self, to knowledge, and many more non-material things. By expressing gratitude, you are honoring your relationship with yourself and adding positivity to it, the impacts of which can be transformative.
References
Watkins, P. C., Van Gelder, M., & Frias, A. (2009). Furthering the science of gratitude. In Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 437–445). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]
Witvliet, C. V., Richie, F. J., Root Luna, L. M., & Van Tongeren, D. R. (2019). Gratitude predicts hope and happiness: A two-study assessment of traits and states. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(3), 271-282.
