Gratitude is Not Just a Buzz-Word

Have you grown tired of hearing that practicing gratitude could make you feel better? Does it feel like people are minimizing how you are feeling when you hear “just be grateful”? It makes complete sense if you resonate with either of these things. Gratitude has quickly become another practice that has been co-opted by the wellness industry and many of us have grown weary of hearing about how helpful it could be for our well-being to practice gratitude.

Instead of gratitude being another prescription or thing to “silver-line” how we feel, I wonder if we could reclaim gratitude as a balm, a resource, a healing force alongside the pain, discomfort, stress, and agony we may experience in our lives. I wonder if we could invite ourselves into appreciation, whether it is in a fleeting moment or a longer term experience, and if we could also validate the other feelings and experiences we are having, too.

If you are curious to experiment with this, maybe see if you could try this nature-based practice. This practice is possible whether you are able to go into a natural setting, you are viewing a natural setting or element in your home or through a window, or you are imagining a natural place in your mind. Using your senses, see if you can recognize something you appreciate in this natural place. For example, if I was imagining a forest and tuning into my sense of smell, I would recognize my appreciation for the smell of pine and the fresh air. You can tune into one of your senses or use multiple throughout the practice. Try this for a couple of minutes and let yourself really notice how it feels to sense what you appreciate around you.

There may still be pain you are feeling when you return from the practice and there will still be difficulty in the world around you. But what may change is your ability to respond to it, sit with it, or be with yourself and others in a more present and open way after you appreciate something about your life, this moment, the earth, or someone around you.

There is a great deal of research to back all of this up and if you’re curious to learn more you can check out work by people like Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Kristen Neff, Dr. Robert E Emmons, Michael McCullough, Misty Pratt , & Maya Angelou, to name a few.