I’m sure you’ve noticed that thankfulness -- as a feeling and an uplifting act -- is having a moment in our culture.
Mental health experts recommend it as a healthful counterbalance to the grief, loneliness and confusion of living in turbulent times. Feeling grateful for even the smallest of blessings can shift our perspective and bring real comfort.
But as Thanksgiving 2020 approached, I wanted to know what lies at the heart and soul of this practice. If we look beyond what we’re grateful for, will we see something deeper about the whys and hows that give gratitude its healing power?
I asked family and friends to send me their thoughts on gratitude — its meaning, its forms, its impact in our lives. Their responses offered me the food for thought I was hungering for.
Molly, 14, a long-distance runner and budding actor, spoke of the ways we show gratitude. There is “expressed gratitude” when we praise others, she noted. “Prayerful gratitude” happens when we tell God about the good we see in our lives. And, she added, there is “quiet gratitude” when we reflect inwardly on the people, experiences and things we appreciate.
Becca, now in her 70s, said that in her lifetime, gratitude has been a conscious act. “It’s the most important work I do in this world,” she explained. “Living alone, I’ve felt isolated over the past few months, but I am part of a beautiful family of many colors and I haven’t forgotten that. Not everyone is this lucky.”
Gratitude is a range of experiences, noted my friend Kathy, a mom, wife and active volunteer. “There’s simple gratitude for my family, a beautiful spring day, the sound of kids laughing,” she said. “Silver-lining gratitude is when difficult things bring surprise gifts. There’s even false gratitude, when I know I should give thanks, so I do, but maybe feel it a bit less.”
The one I loved from Kathy’s list was what she called “zen gratitude, or grace gratitude,” which might mean forgiving her own flaws or experiencing “an unexpected little pause when shit gets heavy.”
My brave friend Kristin, who lives with neurological pain that even the country’s top experts can’t cure, often deals with surly people working in hospitals, clinics and insurance companies. She feels gratitude when the person caring for her actually cares. “The ones who do their jobs with kindness and humanity take so much stress away,” she told me.
Gavin, a gifted singer and actor who turned 16 this year, offered many names for the gratitude he’s experienced.
“Relief gratitude” is when you worry that something awful will happen but doesn’t, he said. There’s a kind of automatic gratitude we give when thanks are due, such as when someone serves us a delicious meal. But the most authentic form of gratitude, he believes, is totally unscripted. “It’s when you simply feel appreciation and say thanks, no prompt needed.”
Kristi, a wife and mother who’s active in her community, said gratitude is a force that awakens her to the experiences of others.
“There are people who exist without enough food, clean water or health care, yet they express thanks for what they do have. How do they maintain this attitude? Where does it come from?” she asked.
She’s seen gratitude transformed into advocacy, as in the case of her friend Kristina who, facing barriers as a woman of color entering the medical field, created a nonprofit that will help others find support as they build their own health care careers.
“I’m so grateful I had a strong mentor,” Kristina explained. “I want to help others get the same mentoring I received.”
So gratitude can be a feeling, an act, a gift, a revelation, a moment of relief. It can represent what we know we’re lucky to have -- or what we’re fortunate enough to be spared.
And when we embrace it at a deeper level, we can find gratitude for virtually everything we see. My friend Dan sent me a passage from the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, which captures the essence of how this happens.
“When I pick up a tangerine with mindfulness, I come in touch with a miracle,” Nhat Hanh said.
Looking at the tangerine itself, he said, “you can see the tree. You can see the white flower and the rain and the sunshine … they’re still there. And the rain and the fog and the sunshine are going through it. You begin to see a very tiny green tangerine … now it has acquired this beautiful shape. The whole cosmos has come together in order to produce this wonderful miracle, which is a tangerine.”
Thanks to all the generous people who helped me deepen my own definition of gratitude. If you’re reading this on Thanksgiving or any day of the year, I hope you’ll scratch out a line or two about gratitude in your journal, and possibly share it with someone you love.