Wallowing in gratitude

A better way to be thankful

It’s Thanksgiving week in the US, so of course the word “gratitude” is everywhere—though, truthfully, it’s been everywhere for a while. There are a zillion books about it. There are journals specifically for it. There are all sorts of practices around it. It’s the solution to everything that ails you.

And that’s the problem, or part of it.

I’ve had a rocky history with the word “gratitude.” It brings to mind images of some stern German hausfrau dictating how grateful everyone should be, which, I realize as I write this, is probably at least partly because it sounds a lot like “Gertrude” (and if it didn’t for you before, it probably will now forevermore. Sorry!).

“Gratitude,” to me, feels like those Christmases when you were a kid and your parents made you say thank you to your grandparents for buying you new underwear that you didn’t care about in the slightest, and honestly weren’t grateful for at all, because it wasn’t the new bike you really wanted.

(Who decided that was a good thing to do to kids, anyway? Is it some unwritten rite of passage that’s written into our DNA, or was it a practical joke that got out of hand? Underwear for Christmas should be illegal in any civilized society.)

I’ve tried gratitude practices. I bought the journal back in the 90s when Oprah declared that writing down three things you’re grateful for at the end of each day would “change your life.” Alas! All it did was have me reaching for three things to write down at the end of some truly awful days, coming up with some pretty pedestrian stuff the rest of the time, and waiting for the miracle that never came.

Now, I want to be clear: I’m not against giving credit where it’s due or thanking people for things they do for us, or noticing things that make a difference in our lives and giving thanks for them. Not at all. I do have trouble with gratitude as performance art, though. If someone thanks me for something, I want it to be genuine. I’m not interested in fawning, compulsory expressions that don’t mean anything.

Most of the time, Thanksgiving and the big gratitude push feel a lot more like the latter to me than the former.

Part of this, as I’ve mentioned, is the word. And that overlaps with the part that feels forced, be it by a holiday, or by the type of scold who thinks that following “all the rules” is the only way to live a “proper” life. (Please, please, do not put everyone on the spot by making your guests go around the table and say something they’re grateful for. Please.)

So what’s the answer?

I think the idea of “just” writing down three things every day is overly simplistic. It’s almost begging you to do something perfunctory and meaningless. Yeah, okay, I can take three minutes to write stuff down without really thinking about it, without feeling anything about it at all, and without any intention other than getting it done—which is where that idea falls down (and is why my gratitude journals failed).

If you don’t actually feel the emotion, there’s no point in doing that exercise—which is usually true for things we do just do to them. There’s no connection with the material. There’s definitely no sense of awe, which is really what I believe a gratitude practice is meant to inspire.

Let’s look at two other words that can help us get where we want to go.

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1. Appreciation

Addressing the word isn’t hard, fortunately. I’m really very fond of the word “appreciation.” “Appreciation” feels open and welcoming to me in a way that “gratitude” does not. I appreciate a good sunset, and the way a friend checked on me after a rough day at work and left me knowing they care about me. I appreciate a good movie score, and absolutely love that my nephews are still young enough to be in full contact with their wonderful, inherent silliness (and that I get to indulge in their company from time to time). It is the easiest thing in the world for me to come up with things I appreciate.

It’s really this easy.

If you’re like me, then, focusing on appreciation is the first step out of the “gratitude” trap. I’m a big fan of lists; sitting down to make a list of all the things you appreciate can be really eye-opening, and even self-motivating, because it can be a lot of fun to notice the things you appreciate without conscious recognition every single day.

When you stop to think about something you normally take for granted, like the fact that you have hot running water available on demand every single day, which is basically a miracle all on its own, your whole perspective shifts, especially when you consider that not everyone has access to a water heater, especially not in their house. (As someone who has had several weeklong runs with a broken water heater over the last three years, I have definitely learned to appreciate that contraption a whole lot more!)

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2. Love

I’m a little reluctant to throw this word in here, because “love” gets batted around as the end-all, be-all answer to absolutely everything by everyone from the aforementioned Oprah and her ilk to therapists to random attempts to sell us stuff. I worry that it’s something we’re going to start to sneer at, if we haven’t already, for being overly simplistic rather than a simple emotion that can be incredibly powerful.

All that said, for our purposes, love is a really helpful emotion to focus on, especially if you have trouble connecting with appreciation, because there’s a ton of overlap between the things we appreciate and the things we love. I love my nephews like nothing else on earth. That’s a given. But I appreciate them for specific qualities, from silliness to an unfathomable sweetness that I hope and pray they never lose. The difference can be subtle, but it’s there.

Look, even Oscar can do it!

If you have trouble thinking of things you appreciate, think about the things you love. You may be surprised at what comes up, because we don’t think of love this way, but look—there’s a reason why you love your best friend or coconut cream pie or the way Douglas Adams strings words together or a Beethoven sonata or Doctor Who, and you probably haven’t thought about it in ages. Give yourself the gift of a few minutes to express what makes those things (and people) special and you’ll land yourself right in the middle of an appreciation lovefest.

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Putting it into action

Now let’s do something wild: put it into action. You read that right. This is not a passive Spark today—it’s time for audience participation. This stuff only works if you do it. And most of us never do.

So: grab a piece of paper, a blank email, the notes (or voice memos) app on your phone, and list three to five things you love and appreciate right now.

Right now. I’m serious.

Channel your Inner Kermit.

As you do this, think about why you love and appreciate these things so much. Bonus points for including those reasons as part of your list. Remember—the magic only happens when you get into the why and let yourself feel that energy of appreciation.

Now let yourself wallow in that feeling for 5-10 seconds to cement it in your mind and your soul; neuropsychologist Rick Hanson calls this “taking in the good,” and it has the exciting effect, over time, of helping your negativity-biased brain see more of this stuff more easily as a matter of course. What’s not to love? (Ooh! Put that on the list!)

And if you want to fire on every possible cylinder, write down three to five more things that you appreciate, and this time, make them about yourself. We tend to forget ourselves (especially women, who are basically taught never to consider ourselves important at all), but there’s plenty to love and appreciate about ourselves, too, and we deserve it.

Did that feel great, or what??

Of course, the catch is that you have to do this on a regular basis in order for it to have a cumulative effect. This is where most of us fall down, because the wired-in negativity bias means we do not naturally pay as much attention to the good stuff as to the things that get us down.

If you want to make a practice of it, I highly recommend setting reminders. Sometimes I prefer random reminders so I’m not expecting them, but that generally requires a specific phone app (Yapp and Random Reminders are two I’ve used on iOS). When it comes down to it, any reminder beats no reminder.

Give it a try for a week or two and see what happens.

In the meantime, share a couple of the things you love with us in a comment. Reading others’ comments will help remind you of things you life and also give us all a boost going into a holiday week that can be more stressful than we want it to be.

PS: I love that you’ve decided to come along on this experimental journey of mine! I appreciate all of you for being here, for dropping a comment or a like on the post, and for giving me a reason to keep putting words on the page.