Strengthening and Stretching Our Gratitude Muscles, Nov 15 2024

What follows is our Weekly Wellness Compass column that is a companion to this podcast.  It is sent out every Friday by email.  You can subscribe at our website: www.WellnessCompass.org

 

Strengthening and Stretching Our Gratitude Muscles

We recently watched a video by a fitness trainer who repeated the phrase "use it or lose it" several times. She was talking about how if we don't regularly use and stretch our muscles, they will gradually lose their strength and flexibility.  In this month of November, when we commonly focus on giving thanks, we thought that was a good metaphor and got us to thinking. 

It's essential to exercise and stretch our gratitude muscles on a regular basis as well. If we don't regularly practice gratitude, we can easily become a bit weak and stiff in this area of wellbeing and fail to notice the wonderful things happening around us.

Research has even shown that gratitude practices positively affect several of the areas included in our Wellness Compass Model of Wellbeing: Emotions, Relationships, Spirituality, Resilience, and Physical health.

Gratitude practices can include simple things such as keeping a gratitude journal, making an intention to express gratitude to at least one person every day, sending a gratitude letter, email, or text to a friend, making a gratitude phone call, or creating a jar of gratitudes on slips of paper with the slips being pulled out and read from time to time. Sharing these expressions or gratitude can be a fun family or friend activity, as it brings awareness to all that we are grateful for and helps create a mindset of gratitude for the gathering. 

We have found it especially powerful to express gratitude to others that is separate from something they may have done for us, but instead focusing more on who they are as a person. An example might be "I don't think I have told you recently, how grateful I am to have you as a friend/partner/sibling/child/parent…"  which has the power to make such a difference for the person hearing those words.  

Strengthening our gratitude muscles means expressing thanks to others more often. Stretching our gratitude muscles means extending our expressions of gratitude to people we may not be in the habit of appreciating.  

Holly, for example, recently facilitated a workshop for some school counselors and made it a point to begin with these words: "Before I get into the topic of this workshop, I just want to take a few moments to tell each of you how grateful I am for what you do every day. You give your heart and soul to your students, and you absorb an incredible amount of stress and suffering every day. Our world is a better place because of you and what you do." Several counselors teared up and deeply thanked her when the workshop was over, thanking her for simply remembering the important work they do every day.  

If you have ever worked with a fitness trainer, you know that they often give you a specific goal to strive for, so we would like to do the same. 

Try committing to expressing gratitude to at least one person daily for the remainder of November. Or maybe even two or three people each day. And stretch yourself to see how many new opportunities you can discover to express gratitude. Not only will the people you are offering appreciation to feel good, but your own wellbeing will be enhanced as well.