Innehållsförteckning för Gratitude Journal från Mindful

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practicing gratitude is how we acknowledge that there’s enough and that we’re enough –BRENÉ BROWN Gratitude is more than just a momentary good feeling. Scientists studying written gratitude interventions, such as gratitude letters or journals, have found benefits for mental health and wellbeing. Gratitude also appears to help you to feel more satisfied in life and can boost self-esteem, according to peer-reviewed research. Here are some science-backed ways that gratitude supports a healthy mind. THE SCIENCE Happiness Boost In one study with nearly 300 adults seeking counseling at a university, one randomized group wrote a gratitude letter each week for three weeks. This group reported significantly better mental health (compared to the control group) at follow-up, 12 weeks after the last writing exercise. Another type of written gratitude practice is counting…

We often live in a world completely defined by our thoughts. What is your relationship to your thoughts? Not only does the mind have a mind of its own, but, literally, we can have thoughts about not having thoughts. It’s very easy to villainize thought as some kind of enemy. We get in our heads that if there were no thoughts we would be at peace, but even that’s just another thought. Here, we let go of that orientation. We still hear the internal talk, we still see the images in our minds, but we see their impermanence. When we practice seeing thoughts clearly as they arise, gently noting them, and returning to the breath and body, we experience a sense of spaciousness and clarity in which we can choose…

I love this quote from the book Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self while Caring for Others. It says, “Those who support trauma stewardship believe that both joy and pain are realities of life and that suffering can be transformed into meaningful growth and healing when a quality of presence is cultivated and maintained, even in the face of great suffering.” Joy is a spiritual mandate. It is the necessary nutrient that elevates us in good times and bad. People heal when they can access the upper registers of the emotional guidance scale, where joy, love, and gratitude reside. All human beings do better when we can find joy in trying times. In the words of Frankie Beverly and Maze, “Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain.”…

The word mindfulness can lead us to think that meditation is all about the mind. In fact, we bring an embodied awareness to our practice when we can bring a full awareness of our mind, our heart, and our body—that’s our thoughts, our emotions, and our sensations. And with that, we actually have much more capacity to be present, to be clear, to be kind. Find a comfortable position. You may be standing, sitting, or even lying down—the most important thing is that you feel relaxed and alert. Make sure that you have some openness in the front of your body. You can roll your shoulders up and back. Or, if you’re lying down, just allow your shoulders to really relax into the floor. You want to have some uprightness…

Once upon a time, I believed Shaun Cassidy, teen singing idol and one of TV’s sexy Hardy Boys, was my soulmate. There I was clad in the kilt and knee socks of a private school girl, lusting over this blue-eyed heartthrob and completely convinced we would fall in love. He would meet my deepest desires (and based on the surprisingly explicit fantasies I penned starring him and me, those desires needed meeting). When he whisked me away to his Beverly Hills mansion I would know and be known. Mated at the soul level, I would never feel alone again. Turns out Shaun was not my soulmate. I look back at the confused girl I was with a mixture of amusement and compassion. I was suffering. I thought my perfect mate…

What makes our communities thrive is not only the paid staff working for our towns and cities, but also hundreds of residents volunteering on boards and committees, in local nonprofits, and other organizations—not to mention countless individuals who jump in to help when there’s a need. One of the best (free!) tools for strengthening communities is gratitude. Research confirms gratitude enhances trust and empathy, nurturing cooperation and effective problem solving in communities. Practicing gratitude for each other also leads to upstream reciprocity, which means that gratitude increases our propensity not only to help someone who helped us, but also to “pay it forward” to strangers. Try this gratitude practice to help you notice, appreciate, and shift your mindset toward ways of being in community with others that benefit us all,…

WE CAN ONLY BE SAID TO BE ALIVE IN THOSE MOMENTS WHEN OUR HEARTS ARE CONSCIUOS OF OUR TREASURESTHORNTON WILDER “Wisdom” isn’t a precise term—it frequently means different things to different people, and can be difficult to define at all. And yet, however divergent our interpretations, we tend to feel like we can recognize wisdom in another person (if not always in ourselves), and it can affect us profoundly. Gratitude has been associated with many qualities that we tend to see as markers of wisdom. THE SCIENCE Feed Wisdom People who are patient are less reactive and have more self-control, and research has linked gratefulness to a higher level of patience. In one study, people who had received help from someone during an experiment were more likely to experience gratitude…

A rich body of research in the field of social sciences has found overall significant benefits of gratitude for well-being, physical health, personal relationships, and social connections. Gratitude can open the door to a different perspective—one that values the goodness in our lives. With practice, we can learn to see the bigger picture and navigate adversity with greater resilience. Gratitude is not defined by privilege, nor is it a naïve or indulgent practice of being happy for material things. Instead, it helps us to see that our full potential can only be realized with the help of others. Practiced in this way, gratitude can be a tool to tackle social and environmental injustices, by strengthening our feelings of worth and value in relation to one another. Grateful living encourages patience,…

Gratitude is more than a practice—it’s a lens through which we can see the world. It can imbue your life with a little more optimism, more resilience, and can help you make healthier choices. That’s what science says. But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you already know that. You may already know the way that gratitude feels in your body—a suffusion of warmth, a feeling of expanding brightness in your chest maybe, or a volley of starbursts of delight in your mind. You may already have noticed that gratitude begets gratitude—you feel it once, and you tend to want to feel it again, and to share the feeling, giving others an opportunity to feel gratitude as well. And if you’ve picked up this Gratitude Journal (thank you! We…

It was an ordinary day. Midafternoon, I took my dog for her usual walk around the block, mind on remedies for the writing class I was to teach that evening. While I was known for the community that usually formed in my classes, this semester was an exception. I had already tried several strategies for bringing the students together, but so far nothing had worked. In those days—before mindfulness was mainstream—I was always worried about something: my teaching, an essay I was writing, my granddaughters, my garden, a recent conversation with a friend. It didn’t take much to turn the anxiety faucet on, and once flowing, it could pull most areas of my life into its current. About halfway around the block that afternoon, I happened to glance down and…

Mindfulness does not depend on what is happening, but is about how we relate to what is happening. That’s why we say that mindfulness and gratitude can go anywhere. In this practice, we focus our attention on the memory of a pleasant experience while allowing ourselves to be present with all the related thoughts and emotions that might bubble up, whether enjoyable or not. All of this complexity—this, too, is a jumping-off point for our gratitude practice. Sit or lie down in a relaxed, comfortable posture. Your eyes can be open or closed. Now bring to mind a pleasurable experience you had recently, one that carries a positive emotion such as happiness, joy, comfort, contentment, or gratitude. If you can’t think of a positive experience, be aware of giving yourself…

This practice is designed to help turn down the volume on emotions that can deplete you. It can help you establish a calm but alert state, maintain composure, and shift to encourage balance: heart, mind, and emotions. Find yourself sitting in an upright but relaxed position. Drop your gaze or close your eyes and connect to your breath. Bring your attention to the area of your heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area. Breathe a little slower and deeper than usual. If you feel comfortable, just place your hand on your chest. Give yourself this moment to turn your attention to yourself, to your own well-being, to the beauty of your own life. Breathe deeply and slowly. Notice where your mind goes.…

Taking a moment to pause with the intention to simply allow our bodies to rest in awareness can bring about a great sense of restoration and renewal to the heart. Our bodies are so overworked and often ignored. This guided awareness practice will allow us to feel a sense of gratitude for our body, in all of its beauty and mystery. Starting off, find the posture that feels comfortable for you in this moment. Check in with your body to sense into what posture is best for me right now? Begin to notice and feel your body here and present, not trying to fix or change anything about the body. In this moment, we’re inviting our bodies to just rest naturally. Take a few moments to feel what it means…

A regular practice of gratitude may be one of the most overlooked tools we have access to in the workplace. Research shows that an attitude of gratitude can improve our physical and emotional health, help us sleep better (avoiding the kind of exhaustion that leads to burnout), and nurture relationships at work. What’s even more exciting is that gratitude can bring out the full potential of those around us. In one study, employees who were thanked more often had better sleep, fewer headaches, and healthier eating habits—all because their work satisfaction spiked. And the nature of gratitude is that it leads to a pay-it-forward mentality: When team members feel appreciated, they’re more invested in helping others feel the same. No wonder gratitude is linked with being a better “organizational citizen”—meaning…

there is always something left to love. and if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothingLORRAINE HANSBERRY A common finding from the research on gratitude is how the practice influences prosocial behaviour, which is when people act in a way that is helpful to others. Think about the last time you faced a significant challenge; hopefully, people in your life rallied around you, providing warm meals, emotional support, or even an encouraging word on social media. This support may have comforted and energized you, and this makes it more likely that you would do the same for others in the future. THE SCIENCE A Satisfied Life Although a person can feel grateful for the things in their life, most gratitude is directed toward other people and their actions. We…

It is easy to feel a sense of overwhelm and confusion about how to engage with the world from a place of strength, groundedness, and calm. In this practice, we will explore how we show up in each of what I call the four transformation quadrants: self, family, community, and organizations. With each, we will meet whatever arises with self-compassion and curiosity. To begin, silently set an intention for yourself to be open and curious about what comes up, receiving what arises with equanimity. You may sit or stand comfortably. Take three deep breaths in and out. Allow your mind, body, and breath to settle into their natural rhythm. First, bring your attention to self-inquiry by gently placing a hand over the heart. This gesture often brings us comfort when…

Today’s world can be not only complex but also exhausting. Many of us spend much of our time feeling afraid, tired, confused, and worried. Fortunately, many people also are uncovering a common thread of goodness and spaciousness, finding they can breathe a little bit better and see a little more clearly in the most challenging moments. Whichever category you find yourself in, it’s important to be OK with whatever you’re feeling; to know it’s OK to not feel OK. In this way, we more easily acknowledge and embrace where we are as we move with and through the world, aligning with whatever supports we need. Paradox, prediction, and perception are three words I like to use to describe how we move through the world, especially during a really difficult time.…

Find a comfortable place to sit, lie, or stand. I invite you to close your eyes or bring your gaze low until a crease of light shines through. Notice what’s coming up for you, what the body is aware of right now. What are you feeling? Notice how your body is breathing. No judgment, just observation. Breathe through the nose deeply—to the top of the breath. Release the breath and soften. Expel all the air from your lungs until you reach the bottom of the breath. Remember who you are, what you stand for, and what’s beneath the surface of your being: the interconnected self. Honor the feet that support you. Notice your feet and what’s beneath them. Soften the feet. Breathe and surrender. Soften the ankles and calves. Feel…

Gratitude offers us a way of embracing all that makes our lives what they are. More than just a happy feeling for the parts of our lives currently going our way, gratitude encompasses the willingness to expand our attention so that we perceive more of the goodness we are always receiving—often, without even asking—from sources and people beyond ourselves, and then acting on the appreciation we feel by paying it forward. In the past two decades, a growing body of evidence in the field of social science has found that gratitude has measurable benefits for just about every area of our lives. Gratitude appears to contribute substantially to individual well-being and physical health. So much so that the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley—a leader in…

It can be helpful to steady your mind and body, so that you’re able to attend to and sustain your attention on whatever arises, which at times can be unpleasant and can pull you away from your engaged attentiveness to the moment as it is. In this body scan practice that incorporates breath awareness, we start by becoming attentive and relaxed in the present moment, and then we carry this stability and tranquility to an added step: cultivating gratitude. For example, when focusing our attention on an object like the breath and when noticing our mind wandering from that object, we can gently return or remember the breath, and we’re able to do so with a little bit more engaged attentiveness and sustained capacity to stay with the object of…

THERE’S JUST NOTHING more Remarkable THAN BEING WITNESS TO SOMEONE WHO HAS DISCOVERED HOW IMPORTANT THEY REALLY ARE.MICHELLE MALDONADO When digging into the science of gratitude, we begin to see it has more dimensions than meet the eye. In the scientific literature, gratitude is studied in several different ways. Trait gratitude refers to whether people have a naturally grateful personality. Gratitude as a mood tracks day-to-day fluctuations in gratitude, while gratitude as an emotion describes a passing feeling of gratitude (when receiving a thank you letter, for example). The gratitude interventions used in studies are designed to boost gratitude as a mood or emotion. THE SCIENCE Support Immunity and Heart Health Research shows that grateful people (those who have “trait gratitude”) have fewer common health complaints, such as headaches, digestion…

When I wake up some wintry mornings, glancing at my weather app (ominously predicting many days of snow and icy temperatures ahead), I can feel the chill of dark thoughts starting to gather. Life’s challenges are seemingly everywhere. Yet, if we want to cultivate resilience, we can tune our awareness to appreciating life’s small delights. My experience shifted when I became curious and focused intentionally on the things that I appreciated. Now, on those chilly mornings, I can also smell my neighbor’s coffee brewing, hear the snow outside, and sense my husband’s warm weight in the bed. Difficulties are still present, but I can recognize that many things are quite lovely. The next time you wish to broaden your gratitude horizons, tune in to each of your senses, and see…

WHEN I STARTED COUNTING MY BLESSINGS. MY WHOLE LIFE TURN AROUND.WILLIE NELSON The find-remind-bind theory, first proposed by psychologist Sara Algoe—an associate professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—suggests that gratitude can help people identify good candidates for a new relationship (find), appreciate existing relationships (remind), and motivate people to maintain or invest in these relationships (bind). As Sara writes in a 2012 paper on her theory: “Gratitude starts inside one individual and its effects spread to a dyadic relationship and perhaps throughout a social network.” THE SCIENCE Stronger Bonds “Social connection is likely key to well-being,” says postdoc research associate Lisa Walsh. She explains that gratitude appears to have social implications by motivating individuals to improve themselves. In a new study from the PAW Laboratory at UC-Riverside,…

Let your body relax and soften. You can either close your eyes or soften your gaze. Taking a long, slow, deep inhale, remind yourself of your body’s inherent awareness, ease, and vitality. Begin by directing your attention to the top of your head, and as thoughts arise, just let them be. Be aware of any tension in your scalp, and on your next inhalation, pause and breathe out gratitude. Place the palms of your hands over your eyes gently. As you breathe in, see if you can soften your eyes. As you breathe out, let go of all the tightness around your eyes. On your next inhalation, bring your awareness to the place in your nostrils where you can feel the air entering and going out. Let your concentration deepen.…

I haven’t always been grateful. Sure, I gave gratitude lip service on Thanksgiving. Surrounded by family, friends, and bountiful food I shared, I was grateful for…family, friends, and bountiful food. But I didn’t feel it in my bones. Over the years, I made gratitude lists, but they didn’t make me feel more thankful. As a result, I’ve come to view gratitude like a greeting card—nice, but paper-made and a little clichéd. My ambivalence toward gratitude unsettles me. There’s much in my life to feel thankful for. What’s more, as a longtime meditator and mindfulness teacher, I’m aware of the lofty place gratitude holds in the pantheon of positive emotions. Contentment is pleasant. Joy is delightful. But gratitude is the mother lode. Cicero called gratitude “the greatest virtue” for fostering patience,…

Simply drop into being present in your body in this space, at this time. If it supports you in this practice to close your eyes, feel free to do so once you’re in a comfortable position. Take a very deep, conscious breath and just allow yourself to have the sensation of sitting and breathing. As you breathe in and out, call to mind an experience you’ve had of being in community. Let’s recognize that being in community can be alluring, exciting, and something we desire, and it can also be very challenging. Call to mind a particular instance of being in community. You could work with your family-of-origin community, or a neighborhood community, for instance. Think of a moment when you struggled to feel a sense of connection or a…

We often find ourselves focusing primarily on what we want but don’t have, which cultivates a negative state of mind. What would it be like to let go of needing anything to be any different in this moment, and to open up to what’s actually here that may bring joy? One aspect of wisdom is understanding the complexity of a situation—appreciating how every event arises interdependently with every other event, how a whole sequence of causes and conditions have gone into creating this moment. When we practice gratitude, we feel a sense of the common humanity that we share but often forget. In the words of the poet Mark Nepo, “One key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.” We can engage this joy with the following practice from the…

To welcome something doesn’t mean we have to like it. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with it. It just means we have to be willing to meet it. To welcome something asks us to temporarily suspend our rush to judgment and just be open to what’s occurring. For most of us, when uncertainty shows its face, our response is resistance. We want to get rid of these difficult experiences like unwanted houseguests. But our work really is to welcome them in, to include them in our meditation practice, in life. Welcoming everything. Wishing away nothing. When I encourage receptivity here I’m not suggesting that we should let life walk all over us—not at all. I think when we welcome something it gives us options. We can get to…