This fall, I had the opportunity to listen to Janice Kaplan, author of The Gratitude Diaries, speak in York at a free public event wrapping up the season of WITF’s summer read program. Admittedly, it was a busy week, I was fighting a cold, and all around just not feeling good or like going out for the evening. But I had made plans with a neighbor who I’d been meaning to spend more time with and get to know, and I had promised to write this blog for our November content; I couldn’t bail.
Ironically, how I met this neighbor was when she rushed out to help when my daughter and I were struck by a woman speeding through a stop sign at an intersection in our neighborhood, just a block from our house.
Going to the event was triggered by a series of events after that accident. Months later, as I was driving past that spot, feeling sorry for myself still dealing with the aftermath of pain and problems, I heard an interview with Janice Kaplan on WITF, talking about her book, The Gratitude Diaries. She talked about a story in the book where a woman lost both of her children in a tragic car accident. But how even in her deepest, unimaginable despair, she was grateful for her friends who helped her through the toughest time in her life. This shook me into perspective that day, with chills. And then, a few weeks later, as my daughter and I visited the Manheim Township Public Library, as we do each week, there was a wall for people to express what they were grateful for. I wrote that I was grateful for my daughter Hazel and Hazel said she was grateful for ice cream.
I realized while Kaplan was recounting her millennial son’s observation that she had always encouraged her family to practice gratitude by going around the dinner table to talk about something good that happened that day, that I have inherently been doing this with my four-year-old daughter for quite some time now too. Each night, asking her what was the best part of her day and then expressing what I’m thankful for that day. Often her responses are the sweetest part of my day with comments like “being with you” or the childlike innocence of reveling in something as simple as “ice cream.”
The Gratitude Gap
Almost everyone agrees that gratitude makes them happy. The “gratitude gap” comes from a study where less than half of people surveyed actually express gratitude.
We’re actually wired to look for the negative–it comes from cave men instincts to look out for things like poisonous berries. So no wonder it doesn’t come naturally to express thankfulness.
There’s also the fact that we are living in a material world (the first of two references to Madonna in this blog, whose 80s hits we should all be thankful for, especially during dull tasks like cleaning bathrooms). But seriously, research on material stuff shows that we get used to getting stuff and just want more stuff, a “hedonic treadmill,” as Kaplan calls it. Kaplan describes this as “the Porsche in the garage syndrome.” Once you get something you’ve wanted for a long time, it becomes the norm.
“Experiences make us much happier, grateful. Experiences change us, the memories stay with you,” she explains. When talking about a rainy camping trip for example, she says, the memories are much better. In fact, research shows that being outside–in nature–does change how we feel and our approach. The key is not just outside in a city per se, it’s the effect of nature that changes us.
Also, unlike material things, we don’t compare experiences. These memories don’t have to be a trip to Machu Picchu, she illustrates, it can be as simple as a family barbecue.
Express Yourself
Expressing gratitude changes the neural circuits in the brain that lead to connectedness and like with exercising muscles, they get stronger. Hey, hey, hey, hey.
In your marriage, try this: expressing gratitude for something your spouse always does such as driving home from the dinner party you attended. Or for doing the dishes. In an email or a text, type “one thing I appreciate about you is _____________.”
At work, 81 percent of people say they’d work harder for a grateful boss, yet only 7-9 percent regularly express gratitude.
Ideas for taking time to express gratitude:
Try thinking about something good that happened that day…
- On your drive home from work
- Every time you turn on the faucet (because many people don’t have fresh water)
- At night with your children or spouse, before going to bed (“It’s a lovely way to drift off to sleep thinking of something positive,” Kaplan confirms.)
The Greatness of Gratitude
Research shows gratitude lowers stress, decreases blood pressure and has dramatic effects on reducing depression. In fact, writing letters of gratitude is one of the most powerful suicide prevention tools. The health benefits of writing such a letter can last for weeks.
“It’s not happiness that makes us grateful, it’s gratitude that makes us happy.”
It doesn’t have to be “soft and sappy,” Kaplan says. After all, she’s from Manhattan, she jokes. In fact, she adds, gratitude and ambition actually go hand in hand. “You can be grateful and still want more.”
The point about gratitude is that it should not feel like a chore. It can start with a scrap of paper. “You don’t need to be spiritual or religious [to be grateful].” Since writing the book, she says, “I can always reframe a situation. If there’s something you can do, change it.” In fact, she says, “The knowledge that you have that control, really changes your attitude.”
“I can’t control the events that happen, but I can control my thoughts about them. It’s a spot of light to move forward, feel better, make things better for others. Gratitude doesn’t change the event or make it go away,” Kaplan explains.
“In the worst of times, if gratitude is one of your tools, you can use that.” There is no life circumstance or emotional state that cannot be improved by gratitude, Kaplan affirms. All you have to do is stop yourself to say, “There is good in this.”
Looking back, and ahead
That car accident that happened the day before Thanksgiving, which I was hosting, triggered another series of events. People chimed in to remind me that it was just a car, to be thankful that my daughter was not hurt or that I was not killed just inches from being t-boned. Instead I learned how angry, depressed and bitter pain can make people. I was not ready for a lesson in gratitude.
This Thanksgiving season, I am in a different place, with a much better attitude of gratitude, despite residual pain and problems from the accident. On the positive side, I met a neighbor who has become a good friend and we got to enjoy a girls’ night out connecting as we went to hear Kaplan speak. Kaplan addressed the audience, “All of us look at someone else and say, ‘If I had that, I’d be grateful.’” She reminds us, “There’s someone looking at you, wondering why you’re not grateful.” My granny always has a blunt way of telling me this too—more on that here and more well played events by the universe on gratitude including another car accident, this time my husband (https://huntingandgathering.co/2016/08/13/losing-control-finding-gratitude-a-not-so-zen-journey/).
There’s no need for comparison, but “we tend to look up and forget to look down,” she says. There’s no better season to remind us of this and no better time to start practicing gratitude.
