There is a science behind gratitude and researchers like Robert Emmons have proven that gratitude is good for our wellbeing. The benefits are endless and include improved psychological and physical health, self-esteem, sleep and increased empathy. It makes you feel good, others feel good and it doesn’t diminish your bank account. Now is as good a time as any to develop a gratitude mindset. There are a variety of ways to cultivate gratitude, I try to keep a gratitude journal although I'm a bit inconsistent, but one exercise I do every week, usually on a Wednesday night, is to either think of three things I am grateful for or to write them in my journal. I think or write about these in as much detail as I can, savouring my feelings of gratitude. In a busy week this becomes a thinking exercise and other weeks it’s a thinking and writing exercise. Flexibility is the key to most things in life and choice is motivating.
However I want to share with you the best and most amazing gratitude exercise I have ever done. Half way through the first year of my Masters I was really struggling, working full time and it was the end of the semester. I had to read and edit over four hundred student reports, essay deadlines were looming and we were in the midst of winter, cold, rainy and bleak. I was studying a Master of Applied Positive Psychology, how could I be feeling this way? I decided to take control and create the conditions I needed to be more positive. I was going to write a gratitude letter every day to someone I was truly grateful for. I didn’t want to just say thank you, which is of course a wonderful thing to do I, I wanted to really explain why each of these people meant so much to me. This exercise usually suggests that you write one letter a week but I tend to throw myself into life so I chose five people at work and five family members and I was writing a daily letter. I went shopping for some beautiful notepaper, which was in itself a very positive experience because I love nice stationery. I sat down to hand write this heartfelt letter, on went the stamp and the letter was sent to each person’s home. I could have handed the letters to them but it is so nice to receive a handwritten letter in the mail, so very rare and special. At one point I worried that the men I was writing to might think a bit less of me, but I am a caring and kind person so I decided to just be me. I didn’t realise what a huge difference this simple gesture would make to them and to me. Each day I couldn't wait to get home to write another letter. Often I would receive a text that night from the recipient. Everyone responded in their own way with positive emotion, I had initiated a positive upward spiral. One older male took me aside after a couple of weeks and told me how much the letter had meant to him. My leadership team and family noticed a change in me, I was more positive, energised and less fragile at this very busy time. I had thought I was masking my feelings so well but those close to me knew how much pressure I was feeling, and because they care about me this that was upsetting for them. My final letter was to my mother who has been my strongest critic and my guiding light, rarely giving me positive feedback but telling the world how wonderful I am. I walked into her room determined to read it to her and amidst lots of tears, mine and hers, I read her letter.
What a learning experience this was, my next step is to focus on receiving gratitude graciously and not just brushing it off. No one brushed off my gratitude, they embraced it and treated me and my feelings with the utmost respect. I have my pen poised for 2018, I’m going to welcome the new year with a gratitude mindset, appreciating the abundance I have in my life. We all have much to be a grateful for, sometimes we just have to look a bit harder. Happy appreciating!