Happy Leap Day! Are you feeling grateful for the extra day? (I know it’s not really an extra day.) Or are you just ready to be DONE with February? I’m of two minds—as always—it’s the curse of being a Gemini.

Last night the mindfulness membership met over Zoom, as we continued to lay the foundation of mindfulness with the theme of gratitude. For a while, I was down on the word. It felt forced, like a “should,” so I adopted using appreciation instead. I’m back to embracing gratitude, not as an emotion I should feel or an attitude I should exhibit, but as a verb, an action word. It is a PRACTICE that makes my world and the world around me better. Just like meditation, this practice settles our nervous system and releases the feel-good hormone dopamine.

A free hit of dopamine on a bonus leap day—what’s not to love?

Gratitude is the positive emotion and internal feelings and/or body sensations that arise when you realize there is good in your life, and further, when you acknowledge the folks and forces that have brought you this good.

Scientists started seriously studying gratitude two decades ago, and now there are countless studies, from the NIH to UCLA and Harvard, touting the benefits of gratitude on one’s well-being physically and emotionally. In teaching mindfulness and gratitude at Clark University, I stumbled upon a video of Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness guru of the East, discussing how he had added two more attitudes to his 7 Attitudes of Mindfulness. And don’t you know, he added generosity and gratitude. He included gratitude because to be awake and fully alive in the world is to not take things for granted.

I grew up in Maine in a log cabin with NO electricity or running water. If I wanted to shower, I needed to build a fire, pump water by hand from a well into the house, then wait for this water to heat up. So, of course, I appreciate the current luxuries of electricity and plumbing I now have. Nope. I take them for granted every single day.

I have a husband who is the kindest, most patient human I have ever met. He adores me—serves me coffee in bed, rarely says no, makes my whims and wishes come true. I am so grateful for him. Nope. Truth is, I take him for granted much of the time.

This is our unfortunate human nature. So, to intentionally make gratitude a frequent practice is essential for our happiness and physical well-being. When I teach gratitude, I list the benefits science has validated. Gratitude:

• is a free way to elevate your mood.

• adds to our happiness and sense of life satisfaction.

• improves mental/psychological health.

• leads to greater resilience.

• boosts the immune system and improves physical health.

• leads to better sleep.

• provides more & improved relationships.

• improves self-esteem.

• enhances empathy and reduces aggression.

However, when I think of gratitude, I don’t see a bullet list in my mind. Instead, many faces and stories surface.

I think of my friend Ruth who lost her best friend and cousin way too soon. In response, Ruth started a blog “Five things that don’t suck, almost every day.” Gratitude can pull us from despair.

I think of a former college student who took my Mindful Choices class and wrote to tell me that he continues to add to a tattered list of things for which he is grateful that he keeps in his backpack. This list he pulls out and reads aloud when “feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or down.” Gratitude can quell our anxiety.

When I was frustrated and feeling taken advantage of and wanting to leave my job, I started acknowledging all that was right and working in my relationship with work. Gratitude changed my relationship with my place of employment such that I could leave, not in a cloud of resentment or desperation, but with full awareness and peace. In fact, now I can be grateful for many frustrations and pains by realizing they are present in my life to teach me something.

Gratitude has the power to change our relationship with any number of things. Yet, until we practice gratitude regularly, we can’t know its depths and powers.

Therefore, during our mindfulness membership meeting last night, we shared practices of gratitude after our meditation. Becca talked about simply walking around the house and thanking the things she encountered and interacted with. In November, Jody pulled out a jar and started asking folks who entered her house to write down one thing for which they were grateful. Her grandchildren, the cable guy, they all did it and loved it. Why wouldn’t they? She offered them a free hit of dopamine.

Another mindful way we can indulge gratitude is by savoring. What is a favorite flavor or smell for you? After our call last night, I had a cup of Sleepytime Detox tea. Its fragrance is one of my favorites! It truly is the little things. 

Okay, here’s an intimate detail. (Don’t tell Luke.) I love the smell of Luke’s closet. It’s where his “yard work” clothes hang smelling of soot, oil, and grass. And where his workweek neckties hang, smelling like the Monday through Friday Principal Robert who plays kickball and chases first graders. The scents of his roles combine into a fragrance that represents how he toils so consistently for so many. It is a beautiful thing to savor and elicits feelings of gratitude for him.

Gratitude is a realization of interconnection reminding me that we are not alone, but dependent on so much and on so many that GRATITUDE seems the most important emotion or quality of human existence.

I know some friends are making a face at me right now. Listen, we can still be grateful and have a healthy amount of cynicism. But I know, and science backs me up, to make a concerted effort in the name of gratitude will render us all more resilient for the long haul of life. I take my lessons from you. Some of you foster newborns, adopt sick, elderly animals to give them beautiful last days, or teach biting, spitting children and remain grateful.

I see you all. I love you. I thank you.

Want to sink into a moment of good feels right now? Complete the following while conjuring pictures and memories on the screen of your mind.

I am grateful for …

Name:

– a person alive and how they support or love you.

– someone who has passed and what they taught you or left you with.

– something in your environment that brings you joy and how it does so.

– something of the earth which you appreciate and why.

– a practice that sustains you and what it provides.

– a purpose and how it fulfills you.

– a quality of mind and how it serves you or others.

– a quality of your body and how it serves you.

How do you feel? Any different?

More Practices of Gratitude:

• Gratitude Jar or Journal
• AM/PM: List what you are grateful for.
• Make a list to carry and read it when you need a boost or a positive distraction.
• Write a letter to someone you have been meaning to thank or someone who has enriched your world in some way.
• Write an ODE, a poem that praises. Show appreciation for something as large as the sun or as small and common as your socks. See Ode to My Socks by Pablo Neruda.

Go ahead. Have fun; be creative. Play. Don’t have time to stop and write? Sing or say it. Remember, like any practice, it only works if you do the work.​

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