Gratitude:  A Prescription for Psychological and Spiritual Health
©2007, Kimberly V. Schneider, LPC
www.findsforseekers.com

If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.                                                                                                             --Meister Eckhart 

          The November celebration of Thanksgiving in the U.S. is actually an adaptation of the old European harvest home celebrations, which took place around the time of harvest.  Songwriter Tom Cowan recognizes this connection in a children’s song about Thanksgiving:  “Thanks for our health, thanks for our hearth, and the bounty that grows from the ground; with our loved ones near, we thank the year that’s brought us safely round.”      

            While a holiday for thanks-giving is a great idea, counting your blessings only once a year won’t bring a lot of long-term benefits.  Instead, consider developing gratitude as an attitude.  Before you get out of bed each morning, give thanks for your life.  Give thanks for the sun streaming through your window (or the rain falling on it).  Stretch your limbs and say thank you for each of them.  Appreciate your body for the way it carries your soul through the world.  Call to mind the people who love you and give thanks for each of them.  Cultivate a sense of awe and wonder for the things you take for granted:  you flip a switch and voila:  LIGHT! You turn a knob and hot water pulses out.  You’re hungry, and you go to a refrigerator, store or restaurant full of food.

          Now take the practice into the more challenging situations.  When you are in the longest line, give thanks for the opportunity to practice.  When your partner irritates you (again) give thanks for his (her) presence in your life (or, failing that, again give thanks for the opportunity to practice patience).  I have a daughter who has had four open-heart surgeries.  The gift of her challenges has been that sometimes, when either of the kids are driving me crazy, I remember to give thanks that they are alive to do it. 

          Consider keeping a gratitude journal so that when times get tough it will be easier to remember all the good things in your life.  It is helpful to write a daily gratitude list, but you can also pick a few peak life experiences that brought intense pleasure and write about those.  Think of these memories as a rolodex of good feelings you can pull out when you need them.  A few examples from my list:  laughing so hard with my best friends from college that we almost got thrown out of a restaurant; my children playing together; the look of satisfaction on Maddie’s face when she makes a great kick on the soccer field; Bridget learning to walk at 4 years old; David getting down on his hands and knees next to me to help me breathe during labor. 

          Once you have a cadre of good feelings to draw upon, you can use them to interrupt distress and destructive emotions.  Next time you are stressed, close your eyes.  Take some deep breaths.  Begin to breathe in and out through your heart.  Call to mind one of your peak memories.  Let yourself feel deep appreciation for the experience.  Notice how your perception of your current situation changes when you look through the lens of appreciation.  (thanks to my friend, health coach Laurie Levin, for teaching me this Hearth Math technique for cultivating appreciation and reducing stress!)