Probably like many of you, I grew up “saying grace” at the dinner table before digging in. I’m not sure why it was called “saying grace” because I always thought of it as saying thanks to God before my meal. Anyone ever have a relative who would wax long in their prayer to God while all the family members waited around impatiently for him to hurry up while the food got cold?

Sometimes, it seems like Christians think they get an extra dose of godly if they say a long prayer while everyone is listening. My uncle, who was a missionary in Russia and then in North Macedonia, loved God AND loved food and was as unpretentious as you can get. His version of “saying grace” was heretically saying, “Thank you, God, for this food, amen!” Some of us hadn’t even closed our eyes before he was finished.

I mention this because I was trying to recall whether or not I was specifically taught gratefulness. To be honest, I can’t remember except for the “Saying grace” bit.

I do remember feeling grateful though. We didn’t have much growing up, so every time I received a gift from someone like a set of hand-me-downs, a chance to work in the church, a set of wheels from my grandpa, I always thanked God and felt so immeasurably appreciative, even indebted. I never felt like I deserved anything, so when something good happened to me, I couldn’t help feeling awed and beholden, usually to God first and then to whoever said a kind word or did a good deed to me.

While I am not a Christian anymore, a lot of my grateful nature remains and I still can’t help whispering a word of thanks to God.

When I was reading up on gratefulness, though, I had a sort of epiphany that I wanted to share with you guys.

What is Gratefulness, really?

I have this lovely journal that has Mary Oliver’s poems sprinkled throughout. An excerpt jumped out at me, which was the inspiration for this post actually.

Bless the words with which I try to say

What I see, think or feel.

With gratitude for the grace of the earth.

The expected and the exception both.

For all the hours that I have been given to

be in this world.”

— From “Good Morning” by Mary Oliver

Merriam-Webster says that gratitude is “the state of being grateful: thankfulness.” I think maybe Oliver and I have the same definition of gratefulness though: an upwelling of humility, emotion and appreciation for the goodness around or bestowed to us; recognition of the source of the goodness; and expression of thankfulness in some form or fashion.

So What?

Science has shown that gratefulness is extremely beneficial to us, and if we aren’t feeling or being grateful, we should try to be!

1. Gratitude boosts your brain.

In studies of 300+ people, depressed people who practiced gratitude by writing a gratitude letter every week or writing “3 good things” every day, were “significantly happier and less depressed” than they originally were before the studies, even six months later. This happens because when we feel or express gratitude, our brains release dopamine and serotonin, two essential neurotransmitters that boost mood. Gratitude evidently even boosts the volume of gray matter in our brains!

Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, BA, in her excellent article on Positive Psychology, The Neuroscience of Gratitude and Effects on the Brain goes on to say that gratitude also releases toxic emotions, reduces pain, improves sleep quality, aids in stress regulation, and reduces anxiety and depression.

It is undeniable that practicing gratefulness leads to more happiness and lessens the effects of depression.

2. Gratitude benefits our bodies.

Research proves that gratitude boosts immunity and heart health and calms our nervous systems. Most recent studies have shown that those feeling and practicing gratitude have fewer health complaints in general, like headaches and nausea, and the reduction in blood pressure helps them conserve more energy. It may even increase lifespan.

The numbers don’t lie. According to Dr. Margaret Rea at the University of California

— Gratitude is responsible for lowering cortisol, a stress hormone, by up to 23% in our body.

— At-risk patients who practiced two gratitude activities (counting blessings and gratitude letter writing) reduced their risk of depression by 41 percent over a six-month period.

— In comparison to patients who neither felt nor practiced gratitude, grateful patients with Stage B asymptomatic heart failure were 16% less depressed, 20% less fatigued and 18% more likely to believe they could control the symptoms of their illness.

— Simply writing a letter of gratitude reduced feelings of hopelessness in 88% of suicidal in-hospital patients and increased levels of optimism in 94% of them.

— Gratitude is related to a 10% improvement in sleep quality in patients with chronic pain, as well as 19% reduction of their depression levels.

Takeaway

Based on all these studies, gratitude seems to be a combination of two things….feeling thankful and being thankful.

You might scoff and say:

But, if you knew how hard my life is, you’d know that I have nothing to be grateful for.

You just don’t know how bad I’ve got it.

I can’t MAKE myself FEEL thankful. If I don’t feel it, I don’t feel it.

And this is all partially true. I DON’T know how bad your life is. I’ve never spent a day in your shoes. And it is pretty darn hard trying to force feelings out of nothing.

But then I watched this TED talk by Tye Dutcher.

The dude lost his freaking foot. And yet he talks about how grateful he is. And it reminds me of other people I’ve met and known in my lifetime who were also grateful despite what happened to them:

• My grandpa, who lost his wife of 56 years and lost his 52-year-old son within the span of a few months;
• My church friend who was jobless and homeless for years;
• A man I met in Thailand who had been the victim of a mine explosion and had no limbs except for 1 arm;
• A pseudo-adoptive father who knew he only had a matter of time before his body would completely shut down;
• A psych patient I met who lost his beloved wife of 66 years;
• A friend who has been homebound for decades because she faints every time she stands up.

They are all like Tye Dutcher. Despite their pain, in spite of their suffering, they exude a grateful spirit.

What This Doesn’t Mean

Now, I’m not saying that we should “just” be grateful no matter what.

I can’t tell you how many times people have said unhelpful things to me like

…I shouldn’t complain so much about hard things that were happening.

…I still have so much to be grateful for.

…Everyone faces hardship and you just need to suck it up.

Honestly, when I hear things like this from people, I want to scream at and then throttle them.

My Version of Gratefulness

I absolutely agree with people-trying-to-be-helpful-but-aren’t in that I have so much to be thankful for. I’m thankful for the sunshine, the flowers, good coffee, my family and friends who love me, my education, my many travels, my ability to have an American passport, a nutritious and tasty meal, a glass of wine, relatively good healthcare, my nieces, my kitties, my ability to still be walking, my sense of sight, my relative safety…I often feel overwhelmed at it all. Like why do I have so many wonderful things in my life when others don’t? (This is probably a topic best left for a different post.)

But what I don’t agree with is that gratefulness somehow is supposed to negate all the bad things in my life. It doesn’t. I think we can be grateful AND we can recognize that we are facing difficult things.

For me that means:

• I can be grateful and yet recognize the fear that I have from living with a degenerative, debilitating illness called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (“EDS”).
• I can be grateful and yet be sad that I lost my dad to suicide.
• I can be grateful and yet grieve that my marriage of 12 years has disintegrated and is over.
• I can be grateful and yet remember the awfulness of being emotionally/verbally abused and sexually assaulted by a past fiance.
• I can be grateful but know that I will never be able to dance again or hike the highest mountains.
• I can be grateful and yet understand that my depression goes so deep that it tried to murder me last year.

And what I learned from Tye Dutcher is that I don’t have to just be thankful of all the little, but important, things in my life, despite all the difficult ones.

I learned that I can also be grateful of those really terrible things that have happened to me too.

• I can be grateful for my EDS and because I’m grateful for it, I am more grateful for other things, like the fact that I am not yet in a wheelchair, the fact that I have good health care at the moment, the fact that it allows me to empathize with others that struggle with chronic pain, etc.
• I can be grateful that I experienced an abusive relationship because it has helped me navigate later relationships. It also makes me understand other men and women who are in abusive relationships but feel like they can’t leave.
• I can be grateful of my mental illness because it opens my eyes to things I never would have otherwise understood.

To be honest, though, I am having a really hard time evoking any kind of gratefulness around my dad’s suicide, my divorce, or my disabilities.

Final Thoughts

Gratefulness is not happiness. I don’t have to be happy at the hard things that have happened to me. Maybe all I need to do right now is recognize them and accept them as a part of my journey. Maybe I can be grateful at other things indirectly caused by the horrendous ones.

Maybe I can be grateful I had a dad, and I am thankful that I got to spend years in Thailand with him. I can be grateful that I knew what it was to love and be loved in a wonderful marriage for as long as I did. And I can be grateful that even though I can’t be as physically active as I once was, I can still walk.

Maybe, even though I am not at the point yet that I can feel grateful for some things that have happened to me, I can still practice gratefulness.

Maybe the practicing will encourage the feeling. You know, the whole fake-it-till-you-make-it idea.

How Can We Practice?

1. Journaling: You can find 30 days of gratitude journal prompts here
2. Meditation: Here’s a great 5-minute guided one.

3. Gratitude Jar: Write or draw something you are grateful for each day on a piece of paper. Put the paper in the jar and read them all at the end of the week.

4. Thank-You Notes: Write thank-you cards, letters, notes, and emails to people who have touched your life in some way.

5. Gratitude Walk: It looks something like this:

6. Gratitude Worksheets and Reflections: You can find worksheets here, here and here.

7. Verbal Thank-Yous: Make a conscious effort to express “thank you” whenever someone does something for you, no matter how minor.

8. Share 3 good things with your family each day.

9. Be creative! The options are endless!

• You can make a gratitude rock in which you can find a stone you like, carry it with you, and leave it in sight. Whenever you see it or touch it, pause to think about at least one thing you are grateful for;
• Make a collage: cut out pictures of things you are grateful for from old magazines or internet images and build a collage with them;
• Paint your gratitude, etc.

Here’s to us working on finding gratefulness even for the things that hurt the most today!