All right, so, we've talked about why gratitude matters.
Now, let's play around with ways to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
And I like that phrase,
"attitude of gratitude," because while gratitude is an emotion,
it's coming from the attitude or the belief of noticing the goodness,
noticing things that you're receiving in the world.
So how do we develop it?
Well, one of the things that we ask people to do
in our work is to make a gratitude practice.
It is so easy.
Let's face it. To scan our lives,
to scan an environment,
and notice all the bad stuff that's happening.
I mean you put on the news and it's usually a pretty hefty dose of ugliness
and badness and despair and more badness and
ugliness breaking out in some corner of our globe.
So, I think we get a pretty hefty dose of danger and threat and trespass.
And so if we want to cultivate an attitude of
gratitude we have to be deliberate about this.
We have to make it our mindset that we're going to go out and,
"hunt the good stuff," that's what we call our version of this skill.
You might like the phrase, "blessings," better.
It doesn't matter, whatever resonates with you is fine.
But what I like about, "hunt the good stuff," is it reminds me, "Karen,
if you want to cultivate an attitude of gratitude,
you got to be active, you got to be deliberate,
you've got to hunt these good things down."
So, one of the strategies we'd like you to practice is to,
every day write about things you're grateful for,
and then to reflect on why are you grateful for that.
You'll probably find that some of the things you
write about are everyday good things, right?
A delicious meal that you had,
a funny conversation that you participated in.
So you're noticing the everyday good things and that's great.
That's certainly going to build gratitude,
but it doesn't only relate to good things.
Another way to develop gratitude is to challenge yourself to think about,
in a negative situation,
is there anything from that negative situation that you're grateful for?
Was there any benefit that came from that negative experience?
That's probably a little bit harder.
Right? Noticing the good stuff is a little easier than
re-framing the way we're thinking about some of our struggles to include,
what am I learning?
What am I grateful for through this struggle?
Try out both.
So here's what to do.
At the end of each day,
write down three things you're grateful for and a little bit of a reflection on why.
So, I do this every day.
Here are my three things that I'm grateful for from the last 24 hours.
One was my son Jacob is
a college freshman and he's home for spring break and we had dinner
together last night and he was kind of regaling us
with funny and parent appropriate stories about his college exploits.
And I just felt like it was wonderful to have a son who
wants to include his parents in
what's going on in his life as he's at college. I was grateful for that.
Another thing I was grateful for is having the opportunity, number one,
to film this MOOC but also all of the colleagues that are supporting me.
I'm standing here in front of the camera talking to you.
But behind the camera right now there's Dan,
there's Judy and these two people have been making this process so easy for me.
So I went home last night and I was like thinking about how grateful I am to them.
And another thing that I was grateful for is the unseasonably warm weather.
Now maybe global warming is a bad thing, but I'll tell you what?
I'm grateful for right now that as I'm walking around our campus,
there is beauty popping up everywhere.
Cherry blossoms are blooming.
Crocuses are out and what a gift that I get to walk
home from this filming and see that beauty all around me.
So those are my three good stuffs from last night.
So as Karen said,
there's lots of benefits to increasing gratitude in our lives.
There's better sleep, there's better relationships, there's less depression.
Who wouldn't want all of that?
And she talked about how, "hunt the good stuff," is a great strategy to build gratitude.
And we can do that by noticing the everyday good moments in
our lives that we sometimes are so busy that we just rush by.
And we can hunt for the benefit in some of
the more negative situations that each of us
confronts at some point or another in our lives.
So as I reflect on my own life,
one difficult situation is that my only child has
type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed just when he was a little three-year-old.
So that's 19 years ago,
that's a long time.
It's a tough illness to deal with.
There is vigilance 24/7.
You've got blood tests,
you've got doctors appointments,
you've got worries about the future.
It affects him the most of course,
but it also affects all of us in our family.
And while there are a lot of burdens and
challenges and worries associated with his diagnosis,
I can honestly say there are a few important benefits.
So, one of the most important benefits and one that I'm particularly proud of for
him is that having diabetes has really made him a very empathic person.
He really knows deeply that everyone's got an untold story.
That you can't tell just from looking at
somebody what they're going through in their own life.
And as a result he's unfailingly kind to all kinds of different people,
gives them the benefit of the doubt.
So while I wouldn't wish a major illness on a loved one or anybody in the world,
I will say that there's some genuine upside in the midst of
this difficult situation and hunting for it can
lead to more gratitude and all of the benefits that go with it.
Karen Reivich, Ph.D.Director of Resilience Training Services
