gratitude

Have you heard of Positive Psychology? I know only a little about it through my job as a teacher and have done a little reading about it, but do not in any way profess to be any kind of an expert on the subject. But, what little I do know, has definitely helped me to process thoughts and feelings in a more positive way in my everyday life.

Professor Mar­tin Selig­man and col­leagues launched what was called “pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy" in the late 1990s as an anti­dote to the tra­di­tional empha­sis of “neg­a­tive psy­chol­ogy” focused on fix­ing prob­lems like trauma, addic­tion, and stress. They wanted to bal­ance the focus of psychology and be able to help every­one, includ­ing high-functioning indi­vid­u­als.

Under the umbrella of positive psychology, Grat­i­tude has been proven to be a prac­ti­cal frame­work for bet­ter func­tion­ing in life by tak­ing con­trol of hap­pi­ness lev­els and prac­tis­ing the skill of emo­tional self-regulation. It was found that the prac­tice of grat­i­tude can increase hap­pi­ness lev­els. Cultivating grat­i­tude was also found to bring other health effects, such as longer and bet­ter qual­ity sleep time.

The most com­mon method used to help people cultivate gratitude was to ask them to keep a “Grat­i­tude Jour­nal”  where you write down some­thing you feel grate­ful for on a regular basis. Another exer­cise was to write a “Grat­i­tude Let­ter” to a per­son who has exerted a pos­i­tive influ­ence on one’s life but whom we have not prop­erly thanked in the past, and then to meet that per­son and read the let­ter to them face to face.

Now I can't claim to have done either of these things with any kind of consistency, although I did, for a while, ask my boys each day about something good that had happened in their day that they could be grateful for (that took a long time to explain) and then wrote it down in a diary. Unfortunately the writing down part didn't last, but we do still talk about a good thing in our day at the dinner table most nights. The "Gratitude Letter", I have never attempted, but there are definitely a few that I should write one day.

However, being grateful, is something that, once you make yourself aware of it, can become an integral part of the way you think about life every day and I do feel that over time that has happened to me. Today, for example, I had to cancel my curcuit class and the weekly catch up that I have with a dear friend who looks after Ben and Teddy while I go to the class, because both Ben and I were sick with some kind of a virus. Almost every Friday over the last couple of months, some kind of illness has thwarted our plans, but,  on the upside, I am grateful for the fact that, because we stayed quietly at home, I was able to play some games and do puzzles with Ben - something that I don't seem to do nearly enough of. 

A friend was recently telling me about how a problem in her knee meant that she was going to be on crutches until she could have surgery on it. This is very frustrating for her, particularly as she loves to be very active. My response was "Oh you poor thing, that's terrible!" She replied, "Well, it's a pain but I'm lucky - at least I don't have cancer." Of course, she's right and that is a very positive way to look at the situation.

When driving in the car, I often find myself looking in the rearview mirror at my three boys and almost having to pinch myself thinking just how lucky I am to have them (that's when they aren't fighting of course!!).

Naturally it's wonderful when someone shows gratitude to you as well. Last week we cooked dinner for some friends and a couple of days later, received this lovely succulent with a thank you note. It now has pride of place on the dining table and it was so nice to know that they really enjoyed themselves.

Today, I was excited (and grateful that I was able to buy it - only $20!!) when this brooch from Elk arrived in the mail. I only ordered it two days ago and it came so elegantly packaged too.

I am grateful that the sun is now going down a bit later in the evenings and my boys are able to have a bit of time to play outside after school while I cook dinner. TV is banned on school afternoons and it gives them the opportunity to bond with eachother while they play.

Yesterday, after they had played this game outside, the boys came inside and Sam came up with the idea (because I was taking too long to play a game of Sevens with him) of building a house of cards. This kept all of them entertained long enough for me to get dinner cooked and on the table.

This little treasure was an unexpected surprise in our lives, but he makes us all so happy - he brings an extra something special to the family. I'm grateful to the friend who passed on this beautiful hand knitted vest, worn by her own two boys, as well as my eldest, Sam, when he was this age. And to the friend who gave me the spunky jeans and shoes - Teddy wears almost exclusively hand-me-downs!

Today I was grateful to my husband for calling during the day to see how I was feeling (since I was sick). I also received a hand written letter in the mail from a friend I haven't been in touch with for  a while - what a treat...

Anyway, I have probably gone on with this for too long already so I'll stop now. But you get the idea...if you find yourself stewing over the things that aren't going right in your life, try to stop that train of thought and take a minute to think about all the things you are grateful that you do have. It can very quickly change your scenery...