Teresa Cochran | Artist to Artist, Faith, In the Know, Reflection & Growth | November 25, 2020
Part 2: Three Powerful Ways to Increase Gratitude in Your Life. In part 1 of this series, we delved into the scientific ways that gratitude is good! In part 2, we will lay out three super-effective exercises to increase your gratitude. The next part of the series will explore how to expand the joy and gratitude you feel to more people. The last part is for artists—it explores how to integrate gratitude into your art practice. “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” –Colossians 3:15 Convinced that becoming more grateful would be a good thing? Me too! Here are a couple of tried and true ways for anybody to increase their gratitude. There are lots of techniques to do this exercise, and all of them are right! You can: One study (Happier Human, 2018) found that a 5-minute-a-day gratitude journal habit increased long-term wellbeing and happiness ten percent! For as long as this practice continued, participants also reported: Most people have difficulties big and small through any given day, month or year. There can be a massive difference in how people think about those difficulties. Are they impossible obstacles? Or puzzles to be solved? Will you be a Tigger, an Eeyore, or something in between? Are you Lucy or Charlie Brown? When reviewing your day or your week, challenge yourself to find the good things hidden within the difficulties—the silver linings in the storm clouds. Write your thoughts down in your gratitude journal. Example: I lost my job. Silver Lining: I would never have chosen to lose my job, but it was also never well suited to me. I was bored by the 2nd year and can’t remember the last time I had a real challenge there. I have grown both personally and in my skill set since I began five years ago. I didn’t have the energy or motivation to (pick one): Now I have an urgent reason to consider what I want my next chapter to look like. This exercise encourages you to think about difficult issues regularly and deeply. The goal is to find real positives for yourself within them. With consistent success, your brain will start to wire itself to realize (more) automatically that difficulties can also be opportunities. The exercise builds resilience, a critical skill for bouncing back after hard times. Think of a positive experience. It can be from any time in your life. It can be small or large, a timely text or a memorable family dinner, or a walk in the woods. Make a list of everything you can remember about it. Set a timer (somewhere between 2 to 5 minutes) and keep thinking about the experience and writing your list until the timer goes off. Experience: I connected with an old friend on a social media site. What I Remember: I was sitting at my desk looking through my social media and saw I had a friend request. I was surprised and happy to see her face. It brought back a rush of memories of when we saw each other every day. I especially enjoyed remembering how we would hold hands and sing at the top of our lungs at recess on the playground. I noticed that her daughter looks a lot like I remember her. It was so lovely to read her first note to me about how she thinks of me often. In all her photos, she and her family look so happy! Reading through her social posts shows me that we still enjoy a lot of the same things. Your brain treats “meaningful experiences” differently than it does other memories. For your mind, remembering these meaningful experiences is the same as having the experience for the first time. Each time you remember them, the neural imprint on your brain deepens. **Important Note** Use this for POSITIVE meaningful experiences. We all have plenty of negative meaningful experiences, and ruminating on those inflates their neural imprint, too. If you can find ways to integrate these small Gratitude Exercises into your life, the rewards can be enormous!How to Bring More Gratitude into Your Life
Start a Gratitude Journal (Spoiler: This is the big one!)
What Makes it Work?
The payoff:
Find the Silver Linings
Next Steps:
What Makes It Work?
The payoff:
Gratitude Bathing
We have been texting, and the conversation feels so familiar.
What Makes It Work?
The Payoff:
Don’t forget that there are three more parts to this blog: