Living Life with a Filter of Gratitude
2020. The year that everything changed. All of our “normal” routines disappeared, replaced with uncertainty.
School? Now at home, taught online with follow-through by moms.
Team sports and dance lessons? Canceled or via Zoom.
Bumper to bumper traffic every day? Nope! I zoom into work. And I don’t mean online Zoom. I literally mean, I drive the speed limit (or faster) the entire way. Going to the office daily is a thing of the past for people who work on a computer.
Zoom for Lincoln
All classes by Zoom for my kids these last 2 months.
For some, the uncertainty of this year has brought forth fear and anxiety. Healthcare workers, while still employed, are putting themselves and their families at risk to care for others. Retailers, while safe at home, fear for the future of their businesses while the doors to many shops remain shut. 3.8 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending April 25th (Source: US Department of Labor). Joblessness in the United States remains a key issue in weighing the risks of reopening the country against the inherent risk of more Americans contracting COVID-19.
But this post is NOT about the debate of reopening shops and restaurants and schools and cities and countries. I simply am trying to point out that all of us are feeling stressed in one way or another right now. With all of that stress and uncertainty, it is easy to fall into a routine of missing what we used to have. A routine of wishing we could have something - anything - different than what we have right now. Unfortunately, once you start down the path of missing what you once had, it can be hard to change directions. But what if you could change your direction? There are clear benefits to training your brain to think about what you are grateful for.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
What is your favorite filter?
If you use Instagram or an iPhone, then you are familiar with the idea of a filter. When you take a photo, you can add a filter that changes the way the photo looks. You can make the photo brighter or darker, enhance the colors, add highlights, and make the photo more appealing to you. There are filters that smooth out skin, filters that hide our imperfections, and filters that alter the original photo entirely, to the point that it is unrecognizable.
At every moment in life, you are choosing the filter through which you observe the world. Filters about our life maybe “I Never Get What I Want” or “I Will Never Succeed”, but filters can also be rose-colored such as “I Will Never Quit” or “This Can’t Beat Me”. The filter you use to view the world impacts the way you interact with and interpret the world around you. If you choose to see the world as a horrible place, the world will present itself to you that way. By the same token, if you choose to see the world through rose-colored glasses, you are likely to believe the best in people and persevere through difficult situations.
More importantly, the filter you see the world through is the same filter through which you view yourself. We become our filters. If you believe you are lazy, you choose lazy thoughts and behaviors. If you see yourself as impatient and angry, then you act in ways consistent with that belief. But, when you see yourself as grateful and calm, the world will present itself to you in ways that allow you to appreciate your life even more.
Did you know that gratitude actually changes the brain?
By its most basic definition, gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; a readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”. Another definition of gratitude that comes from psychology research is “a social emotion that signals our recognition of the things others have done for us” (Fox, 2015). We feel gratitude in two stages (Emmons, 2003). The acknowledgment of goodness in our lives comes first, followed by the recognition that some or all of that goodness is external to ourselves. But with gratitude, unlike indebtedness, with gratitude you do not feel anxious to return a favor.
The limbic system is the part of the brain that controls all emotional experiences. The hippocampus and amygdala are a part of this system and are responsible for regulating emotions and memory. These areas of the brain are activated with feelings of gratitude. When you experience and express gratitude, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters responsible for our “feel good” emotions. These neurotransmitters immediately enhance our mood, making us feel happy. By practicing gratitude every day, you strengthen the pathways that participate in gratitude, making it easier for your brain to activate these pathways and release your “feel good” neurotransmitters in the future. Essentially, the more you practice gratitude, the better your brain gets at recognizing gratitude.
Gratitude has been shown to have positive effects on our brain and our body. A study published in 2003 showed that people who kept a gratitude journal reported reduced pain symptoms. Gratitude fills us with more vitality, thereby reducing subjective feelings of pain. Gratitude has also been shown to aid in stress regulation, improve our quality of sleep, and reduce anxiety and depression. According to research, grateful people are more agreeable, more open, and less neurotic. (McCulllough, 2002 & 2004; Wood 2008). Gratitude also leaves us with improved optimism (McCullough, 2003) and increased happiness (Toepher, 2011).
“Be thankful for what you have, you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never ever have enough.”
How to Practice Gratitude?
By practicing gratitude every day, we can help the neural pathways associated with gratitude to strengthen themselves and create a grateful and positive nature within ourselves. So that begs the question, how do you practice gratitude?
Commitment. Commit to finding something you are grateful for every day. Every. Single. Day. This can be a morning or evening gratitude journal, a dinnertime family discussion, or reviewing the photos on your phone each night, marking the one that brings you the most happiness. Do it daily. Make it routine. Personally, I do a “line a day” gratitude journal. Additionally, we also do a family gratitude song and gratitude sharing at dinner every night. Check out the video below for how we do it.
Write it down. Writing things down helps you focus on what you are doing, limiting the distractions around you and within your brain. The act of writing can help you remember, and gives you a way to reflect back on what you were thinking. Personally, I like writing with pen and paper, but if you prefer an App or Excel spreadsheet, those are great too.
Don’t quit. At first, it may seem like a chore to write down one thing you are grateful for every day. However, as you begin, you will notice that your outlook improves and it is easier to find the positives around you. I have now been keeping a gratitude journal for almost 2 years. At first, sometimes I had to really think about what I was grateful for. And on bad days, I still have to skim through my mind (and my phone pictures) to find a small thing to be grateful for. But more often, I have so many things I am grateful for that I have to choose which one I am MOST grateful for that day.
“It is not happiness that brings us gratitude. It is gratitude that brings us happiness.”