Gratitude

Thanksgiving shares a range of messages, when you think about the history the spectrum sways to the negative and dark history between the settlers and the Native Americans. When you focus on the message of Thanksgiving that’s where you focus on the feelings and attitudes of gratitude. But what really is the meaning of gratitude? How is it different from appreciation? Is gratitude just an emotion or does it affect other parts of us? Here I’ll share some thoughts about what I’ve learned about gratitude, and I hope you can also learn something here as well.

The word gratitude comes from the Latin word gratus, which means ‘thankful or pleasing’, the Medieval Latin term gratitudinem, which means ‘thankfullness’ both of which stem from a Proto-Indo-European root word gwere which means ‘to favor.’ Then going just a little deeper with the meanings, there are ties to other origins like the Sanskrit term grnati, ‘sings, praises, announces’ and Lithuanian giriu, girti, ‘to praise, celebrate.’

Even from just the etymology of the word, I feel as if there is more substance to gratitude than just an expression of things that we are grateful for. That actually started to bother me a few years ago, when the season came around and other people started sharing what they were grateful for, it was always the things that were obvious to me like, my family, my pets, my life, my job, my faith etc. I started asking myself, “Why are we expressing our gratitude for things that we should be grateful for every single day? What are some things that I don’t notice? How can I make gratitude more effective for me?” That started my focus on looking for the things less noticed, or perhaps just overlooked that I should be grateful for. You know what? When I started to change my focus and included those smaller details my outlook was trending towards the positive. I was able to notice that I tended to focus on the positive outcomes with situations that others may view as tough or troubling. I had no idea why that was the case, until recently :).

For those of you who know me personally, or may have picked up on my previous posts, I’m a nerd for psychology and the brain. I love being able to analyze those complicated areas and functions that are still so mysterious to us. Because of my obsession with the brain and psychology I was lead to a podcast that was put on by Huberman Lab’s which is hosted by Dr. Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. If you haven’t heard of this podcast, I would highly recommend that you do, especially if you are interested in free educational information about a plethora of subjects! Anyways, presumably Dr. Huberman released a podcast episode reviewing the best gratitude practices. Now I don’t want to plagiarize, or give up any spoilers to this amazing informational dump that I attempted to absorb first time listening. I’ll just share a summary that I’ve made for myself so that you can also be invited to learn more about this subject as well.

Basically, when gratitude is effectively practiced it will engage out prefrontal cortex, specifically the area that controls our perceptions of ‘context’, and when this occurs our way of thinking can change to a more positive outlook. There’s definitely more science involved and the podcast does an excellent job illustrating those aspects. What I found was interesting is that in order to have the best gratitude practice, it’s not an expression of thanks towards others, it’s actually a receiving of gratitude that is the best practice. In order to actually practice this receiving, you think of a story of when you received thanks or when you observed this expression of thanks. Summarize this example with a few bullet points and just take a few minutes to contemplate those instances. That’s all it takes! I’m sure I didn’t explain it the best way I could, but all the more reason to listen to the podcast :).

I just wanted to finish off by sharing some of my favorite quotes on gratitude:

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.”
― Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden

“True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thanks for reading :).