It’s Week 12 of our journey to find more light. This week, we turn to something that many have touted for its healing qualities and the ability to help us find more light: gratitude.

The main section below offers three separate takes (from different perspectives) on the benefits of cultivating a sense of thankfulness and appreciation for the good things and beautiful moments in life.

And if you missed Week 11’s entry or the latest Finding Friday post, they are here and here.

Week 12 Prompt:

Now we’re going to see for ourselves if gratitude helps us find more light.

Today, spend five minutes thinking about and then writing down all the things you’re grateful for in your life. Or pick one specific thing and write about that in greater detail if you like. Repeat each day.

If you want to keep it simple, follow Shawn Achor’s Happiness Habits practice: write down three new things you are grateful for each day.

How do you feel afterwards? Write that down in your journal as well.

And if you really want to build your light-finding muscles, make gratitude journaling or a gratitude meditation a daily practice.

I) Beyond The Cliche: Gratitude Really Can Affect Our Lives

“Reflect on your present blessings, on which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

Charles Dickens

The notion that gratitude is good for our well-being has been stated so many times it can feel cliche’. We’ve all heard about gratitude journals and prayers and meditations aimed at helping us focus on the good in our lives. In Benjamin Franklin’s edition of Poor Richard’s Almanac, he has a whole insight into the nature of gratitude and how it affects our lives.

Can something that seems so simple really do wonders for us? Here’s what a psychologist, a spiritual master, and a world-famous biologist all have to say about gratitude and its effects:

In The Transformational Power of Gratitude (via The Huffington Post), Dr. Randy Kamen writes, “Three decades ago, Martin Seligman and colleagues launched the field of “Positive Psychology”. Here began the scientific study of emotions such as gratitude, optimism, forgiveness, happiness, compassion and altruism.

What we have learned is that cultivating personal attributes fortifies us during times of adversity and emotional turmoil and leads to greater happiness and resilience. Moreover, of all the attributes one can develop, gratitude is most strongly associated with mental health.

In 2007, Robert Emmons began researching gratitude through a psychological lens. He found that expressing gratitude improves mental, physical and relational well-being. Being grateful also impacts the overall experience of happiness, and these effects tend to be long-lasting.”

Kamen’s post goes on to list a number of suggestions for gratitude exercises that could help you build a practice.

On the metaphysical side of the fence, in How to Harness the Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles, Dr. Barbara De Angelis writes, “It is time to make a Soul Shift from thinking of gratitude as a mental or intellectual way of looking at things—an attitude—to understanding it as a dynamic vibrational experience.

Gratitude is not an attitude in our mind. Feeling grateful is an internal experience of fullness and expansion in the heart, an expansion that spontaneously arises from the recognition of love, of goodness, and of grace. In its highest form, therefore, it is not a practice. It is a living expression of our own expanded consciousness.”

Finally, Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of the highly recommended Biology of Belief can explain how gratitude is translated by the brain into complementary neurochemistry that is secreted into the blood stream:

“The chemistry of gratitude energizes the body and releases a wave of euphoric sensation, a sense of harmony with all that is. The emotional chemistry of gratitude engages the activity of an amazing enzyme – telomerase, the cellular equivalent of the Fountain of Youth.”

In this video, Lipton explains how: https://youtu.be/rvbzZoaQ5Oc

Together these three make a strong case for bringing more gratitude into our lives! Let’s try and see if it helps us find more light.

II) Resources / Links:

The Transformational Power of Gratitude
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-transformative-power-_2_b_6982152

How to Harness the Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles
https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/gratitude-power-6-principles/

The Healing Power of Gratitude
https://www.brucelipton.com/newsletter/think-beyond-your-genes-november-2018

Positive Psychology Center- Dr. Martin Seligman
https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu

Shawn Achor- The Happiness Advantage
https://www.shawnachor.com

III) Questions?

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me here and I’ll get back to you soon.

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