Make gratitude the new attitude for 2016
“The test of all happiness is gratitude.” G. K. Chesterton We know for certain that stress can steal our emotions and health,often leaving us less patient, irritable, and with frequent headaches. But there is a simple solution to stress, and it only involves giving gratitude. Giving gratitude is more than saying thank you. Studies have shown that those who embrace an attitude of gratitude on a constant basis are relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and emotionally resilient. They are also more helpful, empathetic and forgiving, more spiritual and religious, and less materialistic. An attitude of gratitude can positively influence the way we think and feel resulting in our wellbeing and success.
The association between gratitude and happiness has become a well researched topic. Whilst many emotions and personality traits are important for wellbeing, there is evidence that gratitude may be particularly important for influencing increased wellbeing. Psychologists at the University of California are studying feelings of gratitude and its impact on our wellbeing and emotional state. Feeling grateful is not a natural process as it is difficult to feel grateful when we experience hard times in life. However, it is essential that we differentiate feeling grateful and being grateful. We don’t have total control over our emotions, but we can will ourselves to feel grateful, less depressed and be happy as these feelings often follow from our perceptions about the world, about the way things are and the way things should be.
Being grateful is a choice. It is an attitude, and it is relatively immune to what we have and don’t have in our lives. Often gratitude will help us view life in its entirety in order to avoid being overwhelmed by temporary circumstances. It is in difficult situations that we can gain the most by a grateful perspective on life energising us when feeling demoralised, healing us when we are broken and giving us hope when in despair. In essence an attitude of gratitude will invariably help us cope with difficult times.
Emerging scientific studies suggest that trials and suffering can refine and deepen gratefulness by allowing us not to take things for granted. It is natural for us to take good things for granted when times are good believing that we are invincible. However, in times of uncertainty we realise how powerless we are to control our own destiny. By accepting that everything we have, and everything we have counted on may be taken away, it becomes much harder to take it for granted.
Further, being grateful does not mean disregarding our troubles, denying negativity and carrying on. Instead, it means empowering ourselves to transform an obstacle into an opportunity, reframing a loss into a potential gain and recasting negativity into positive channels for gratitude.
Equally, recognising that gratitude is a helpful strategy to manage hurt feelings does not mean that we should disregard or deny our pain. To deny that life has its fair share of disappointments, frustrations, pain and sadness is irrational and unsustainable.Attuning ourselves to being grateful we learn to cope by consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude, developing our mental immunity cushioning us when we fall.
Developing an attitude of gratitude is a simple way to make each day worthwhile in 2016 as we learn to appreciate the simple pleasures and things that we previously took for granted.