By Marinne Hammond
“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.”
Throughout the years, we have all probably made several “gratitude” lists—you know, those ones inspirational speakers encourage you to make. You follow their instructions by finding a blank piece of paper and jotting down 8-10 different things that you’re grateful for. Maybe on your list are things like your job, your family, a next-door neighbor, or a favorite food.
In my experience, I feel a sense of warmth and happiness as I make lists like these. However, I must admit that somehow, these lists have never really stuck with me—they get shuffled among all my other papers, journals, and books, and if you were to ask me to show you a gratitude list I’ve made, I can’t say I would be able to find one.
As a society, we praise gratitude. As an individual, I also praise it. So, why do I find myself making list after list, never really remembering the things I put on them?
I believe I started to find the answer to this question a few years back. It was a beautiful Thanksgiving day, and my family was gathered around a table in my grandmother’s backyard (because, in Arizona, you can eat Thanksgiving dinner outside without freezing). We piled up our plates with the nostalgic food my grandma makes every year—mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, turkey, and more. Once we were all sitting down, we began the classic activity where everyone goes around the table and mentions something they are grateful for. I can’t remember what most people mentioned, let alone what my own response was. But I can remember my dad’s.
When my dad’s turn to say something arrived, he said he was grateful for his family–my mom, me, and my three younger siblings. But he didn’t just leave it at that. He said that his family was what he lived for; not just what he was grateful for. While I’m sure my dad was also grateful for his job, I only remember him saying how grateful he was to come home from work and spend quality time with us. Love for family was more precious to him than anything else. As I reflect on this experience, I can’t help but compare my dad’s deep expression of gratitude to my fleeting bullet-point lists of blessings. My dad lived for the blessing of family, while I simply felt grateful for the items I would put on those lists. I am beginning to realize that there is quite a difference between feeling gratitude and living gratitude.
In the book The Psychology of Gratitude, Emmons and McCullough (2004) highlight this difference by distinguishing episodic (fleeting) gratitude from dispositional (lasting) gratitude. They write:
At the moment when it dawns on you how far out of her way your colleague went to enable your vacation to coincide with your mother’s 90th birthday, you are struck with a feeling of gratitude. Let us call this episode an emotion and note that the emotion occurs at a given moment, endures for a while, and then subsides, giving place to other mental episodes: You’re worried about catching the 5:30 train, you’re angry at the passenger who sits astride two seats . . . The disposition of gratitude, by contrast, does not occur at particular moments in the course of your day or week but may be a trait of your character . . . If you have gratitude in this way, you are formed, as a person, in such a way that you are prone, over a fairly long stretch of your life, to episodes of gratitude on certain kinds of occasions or when contemplating certain situations. (pp. 59-60)
Learning about the distinction between gratitude as a fleeting feeling versus gratitude as a character trait has helped me to see that it takes much more than recalling a conglomeration of what I’m thankful for to actually acquire a noticeable disposition of gratitude. To become a grateful person requires a paradigm shift—it requires us to recognize life’s gifts over and over again.
I also believe that this work towards becoming grateful requires us to look back on times when we weren’t necessarily as fortunate as we are now. While I am far from maintaining a perfectly grateful disposition, I can point to my gratitude for my car as a simple example of my striving to become a more grateful person. When I first left home to attend college, I didn’t have a car. This meant I walked to the store, sometimes in the snow (I wasn’t in sunny Arizona anymore) to get my groceries. Taking the bus to school was my only option, and if I needed to get somewhere else, I usually had to ask for a ride.
About a year later, though, I was fortunate enough to get my own car. I could finally go wherever, whenever I wanted to. I felt grateful for my car when I first got it, but I think I can say that I have remained grateful for it ever since. More often than not, when I hop into my car and drive away, I feel gratitude in my heart for the chance I have to get where I need to go! In a convoluted way of explaining my dispositional gratitude, I don’t have to “remind myself to be reminded” of how lucky I am to have a car. In other words, I simply am lucky.
Because dispositional gratitude is quite the process, I am still searching for ways to be better. How can we all take hold of lasting gratitude in our lives, starting today? Psychologist Tara Brach (2019) offers us suggestions:
“Remember the good”
This strategy focuses on directed attention and purposeful remembrance towards what we are thankful for. This could look like pausing your day and meditating, voicing your gratitude out loud to people/things (i.e. “I’m grateful for you, [fill in the blank]), or finding someone who can be your “gratitude buddy”—that person who you can send a list of 3 things you are thankful for when your day comes to a close.
2. Be “spontaneously” grateful
A more spontaneous approach to being grateful may work for you. Throughout your day, as Brach (2019) puts it, you have the chance to think, “Oh this! Grateful for this!” for the good things you encounter. These things include “some bit of beauty”, “a bit of awe or wonder”, “good humor”, and “care” (Brach, 2019). To me, the most exciting part about this strategy is that you get to determine (and prize) the parts of your day which you consider gifts.
I hope you find these strategies insightful and effective. In short, I am coming to know that merely experiencing a feeling of gratitude is easier than living in a state of gratitude. When we live gratefully, those that give to us can feel more loved and appreciated. Deep gratitude takes work, but, in the end, I believe this work is well worth it.
“The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.”
References
Brach, T. (2019, November 29). Transcript ~ gratitude: Entering sacred relationship. Tara Brach. https://www.tarabrach.com/transcript-gratitude-entering-sacred-relationship/
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (Eds.). (2004). The psychology of gratitude. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.