Each year as the season changes and the temperatures begin to cool, we are reminded the holidays are approaching. Some individuals find joy in the leaves changing from green to red. We enjoy bringing out our heavy coats and sweaters, putting away our shorts and sandals. We see commercials of people around a table, eating together, smiling. November and December are times we are supposed to be grateful. The romanticized view of gratitude can look like laughing friends, or joyous faces of family sitting together with smiles on. It can look like homes full of warmth and food, or long lists of activities to do on a vacation.
But what if gratitude looks different for you this year? Often times it can feel like a struggle to find thankfulness when we are overwhelmed, worried, or isolated. We can feel distracted by the challenges we are navigating and the idea of “being grateful” can flood us with emotions. Gratitude is not only found in smiles on our face, but it is found in the small things we experience and practice each day. Gratitude can be present in our lives even in times of emotional darkness.
Research has found that people who tend to be more grateful have more brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, the area associated with learning and decision making. This brain activity persisted a month later, suggesting that gratitude has long-lasting effects.
Here are a few ways to practice gratitude in the coming months:
Start your day with setting your intentions and centering yourself.
Take a few minutes to breathe and say one thing you are grateful for. This can be something as simple as the ability to wake up today. Or the floor that you sit on to practice being mindful. Use mindfulness meditations to help you find calm and stillness. Different guided meditations, such as love and kindness, allow us to widen our perspective of life and our connection to ourselves and other beings. It promotes acceptance, detachment, forgiveness, and thus, gratitude. We can also take this moment to imagine a specific situation we are grateful for and let the feeling grow and be stronger.
Say thank you to others.
Saying thank you is an active way to practice gratitude. How many times do we say 'thank you' without taking a moment to actually feel thankful? Taking time to verbalize thankfulness to others connects you to the emotion of gratitude. This could mean adopting a more conscious non-verbal communication (like eye contact and a smile), writing a thoughtful message acknowledging others’ behavior and its positive effects on you, or saying thank you with a nice gift or service gesture (like a shoulder massage). Be creative!
Start a Gratitude Journal.
Journaling can be an excellent self-therapy technique. When you write, you use different parts of your brain and access memories and emotions from a new perspective. A gratitude journal has been proven to activate brain areas that are related to morality and positive emotions. People who could find purpose and feel grateful for the good things to come out of a challenging situation show higher resilience, forgiveness, and detachment. And reading your own words of gratefulness can help you feel better when struggling to be positive.
Kelly Feddern,
LCSW
