My friend Natosha is a true-life lesson in gratitude, and boy do I need schooling. She's 21 and was raised in what most of us would consider extremely difficult, even dark circumstances.
Today she has the love and emotional support of her grandparents and some close girlfriends, but other than that she's been on her own most of her life.
(Those of you oldlings who don't think much of the younger set should get to know Natosha and her housemates. They are a continual inspiration in kindness and generosity too.)
Natosha has plenty of legitimate reasons to complain, yet I consider her kind of a gratitude guru. I interviewed her this week, trying to ferret out HOW SHE DOES IT. How does she maintain a humble, thankful, giving attitude, when so many people in her spot would be angry, resentful and lolling around in self pity? Here's what she said:
"I have to make it a point to try and notice the good things in my life. When I was around 16, I realized I'd been so ungrateful for what I had: for the love of my grandparents, for everything good. It was a huge weight."
"And as soon as I let it go and started feeling grateful, and letting people know how I felt, my world got a lot easier. Because what I put out is what I got back."
"And it's either going to be a
circle of good or a circle of bad."
"Don't get me wrong, it's not just natural. Being unhappy is the easy way out. Happiness is a discipline and being grateful is part of the work." (See what I mean? Guru!)
Dr. Martin Seligman, a researcher and teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, is considered the father of positive psychology. He doesn't know Natosha, but they are in full agreement.
Dr. Seligman developed an inventory, the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, which allows us to explore character traits and rate our personal strengths and aspects of happiness (click here to take it for free).
He noticed that when an individual had an insufficient appreciation of good events, and an overemphasis of bad or unfortunate experiences, it greatly undermined their serenity, contentment and satisfaction with life.
Seligman conducted research with his students which required them to, in effect, count their blessings. When asked to write down five things for which they felt grateful for, once a week, for 10 weeks in a row, exciting results emerged.
The students reported feeling less stressed, more content, optimistic and satisfied with their life. These were similar to findings of other researchers in his group, which showed that participants who counted their blessings on a regular basis became happier as a result.
Seligman's research also proved that, while counting our blessings this way can improve our moods and overall level of happiness and health, expressing that appreciation to others will do so even more.
So how do we increase our feelings of gratitude even when life presents disappointments, challenges and adversity?
Is it really possible to express gratitude when you are not feeling you have much to be grateful for?
This is the topic of my next talk (see sidebar). We -- yes, me too! -- will have a good time together, getting to our gratitude (the real stuff, not unicorns, glitter and cheerleading). And we'll set ourselves up right to welcome in a terrific holiday. I hope you'll join me. :)
