As I declared, fairly recently, I am writing a book and of course, me being me, it’s about gratitude. If you don’t already know this, gratitude is my favourite mindset and self care topic and something I have practiced and held as part of my daily life for around 20 years now.
The book, called The Gratitude Habit is still very much in the development stage, but I am writing material for the book currently and I have decided that it will be a ‘collection of essays’ approach, rather than a linear book. I will address the topic in an order that makes sense of course - and I think it will also be part essays, part ‘to do’ exercises and ideas for readers to try out as they create their own gratitude habit.
I’ve decided that as I write, I will publish bits of writing in posts to my membership as part of the benefit of joining.
What I post won’t be completely finished work, but first drafts of chapters, ideas, exercises to try out. I will post on and off, just as I write and create things, a sort of behind the scenes to the creation o the book, perhaps with thoughts nearer the time of how I publish and how I get my work out in the world.
So here goes, the first entry in this series of writings and thoughts on gratitude as I gather my thoughts, experience and methods into the form of a book… This is the rough draft of an essay all about how gratitude is not a list, it’s a feeling and the importance of embodying your gratitude habit…
Gratitude is a Feeling
When people start a gratitude habit of keeping a journal or similar, one of the easiest mistakes to make is to miss the fact that gratitude isn’t a statement or a list or a journal entry.
Gratitude is a feeling.
To truly get the positive benefits of keeping a gratitude practice and for it to impact your body, heart and soul, you must feel the gratitude, somatically.
You must take it and embody it. Allow the feeling triggered by the though you have about the thing you are grateful for, to inhabit your body.
Think about it. Go back to the research I mentioned about gratitude reducing blood pressure, or lessening anxiety. How could that possibly happen from someone dashing off a list, pen on paper, all facts but no feeling? How can those magical alterations in the body and spirit happen with no true connection?
It can’t. The emotional shift that gratitude creates is what allows the physical change to happen. You feel grateful, your mind and soul is less burdened, breathing slows down, you feel the gratitude, your spirit lifts. It stands to reason that if you feel positive, calmer, more joyous, that this is what brings about the changes in blood pressure, anxiety, immunity. How else can it be explained?
The link between body and mind is well documented. And sod the research, you know this to be true.
Haven’t you become physically ill with a virus or similar, during times of stress and overwork? I know I have. During the busiest job I ever had working in the marketing department of a galleries and museum service (which I loved, but was also very, very stressful) I would get ill the week after the launch of every big exhibition. You could have placed lucrative bets on it. Cystitis leading to a kidney infection, labyrinthitis, flu.
Haven’t you also felt your body calm down, relax and rejuvenate as you take a break under a shady tree on your annual holiday, experiencing that wonderful feeling of melting into the sand or cushions beneath you?
Don’t you recognise the physical sensation of joy? Of awe? It’s easy to see how being connected to such feelings can have a positive effect on your physically body as well as your spirit and emotions.
So don’t skip over embodying your gratitude.
You have to feel it. You cannot approach it like a ticky list thing, like brushing your teeth, doing the laundry.
Yes, we are absolutely talking about making a habit of gratitude here, because you need to get a dose of this regularly. Once you get into it you will want to because, done correctly, it feels so good.
That’s part of the charm. Drop the duty to gratitude and learn to revel in it. Learn to take it everywhere. But it only feels good, and works effectively, if you take it into your body.
When I write something in my journal, I place that feeling in the body. The beauty of nature on my walk that day? I feel the light breeze, smell the blossom, recall the beautiful contrast of lime lichen and pink petals. I recall the lightness of heart that being immersed in beauty brings.
Gaining a new client? The feeling of connection I had when we spoke, the welcome knowledge of adding to financial security (I love that feeling, not the money, the security), the excitement of what we might create together in our sessions.
Spending time with my son? The warmth and the emotional closeness, holding a hand or linking an arm, the surge of laughter at a shared joke. The swell of my heart as I recall looking at his beautiful, not child, not man face as he tells me another story about his day.
I cannot just make a list like;
My walk in nature
Signing a new client
Spending time with Jake
And then be done with it.
It is all the feelings shown and felt. The oneness with nature, the intoxication of the senses, the sharpness of beauty. Security, excitement, creativity. Unconditional love, more beauty, some wonder. Kindness.
You have to feel it. And really, don’t you want to feel it? It’s like enjoying the same experience twice!
Gratitude, depending on the subject or the situation, is felt in many different ways, but it’s not a head thing, it’s a body, heart and soul thing, stemming from what’s being conjured up in your mind, flowing through your body. Feelings of calm, acceptance, joy, love, care, excitement, wonder, bliss, security, connection.
Isn’t the very best part of gratitude, the moment where you connect to it? That surge of gratitude? All those blended feelings?
And as I say, the additional benefits of gratitude that happen beyond that moment, the help with anxiety, the lowered blood pressure, the longer sleep, they can only happen as a result of that embodiment of gratitude, those initial thoughts in her head.
We will get beyond gratitude as a list as ways of connecting with gratitude – though I still make a list every day. When you really connect to the idea that gratitude is a feeling, you just can’t help but go way beyond the list, to embody gratitude throughout your day.