Here is an article from my column in The Providence Journal. It is an excerpt from a book I am writing which I happily share with you. If you like this article, please do go to the link at the end and hit “Recommended.”
Gratitude during happy times and sad ones.
Fireworks and rainbows take our breath away. A home run or touchdown sets us cheering. Friendship gives us comfort. Love captivates us.
With each experience we are filled with gratitude. When we feel happy, safe, protected, and loved — we are grateful.
It is so easy to be grateful when things are going our way, but it is a challenge when we are hurt or disappointed.
What happens when our husband or special someone gives us a gift that we really do not want?
What about our best girlfriend who is supposed to come over to watch a “tear-jerker chick flick” but cancels at the last minute because a neighborhood heartthrob asks her out on a date? We have a choice. We can be angry or we can be grateful that she is happy.
The author and journalist Anaïs Nin says: “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Those we love oftentimes disappoint us, and we disappoint them. Life is not always rosy, but we can still put those rose-colored glasses right back on and look for sunshine instead of the clouds.
Researchers at the Journal of Happiness Studies tell us that “thinking about the absence of something we cherish intensifies the gratitude for it and we become less likely to squander it or take it for granted.”
I once learned of a story about a teenager who came home with body piercing, pointed hair, and tattoos. She was the daughter in a rather prominent academic family. Most mothers would be mildly hysterical. This mother ignored her daughter’s rebellious look and said, “I never realized how your eyes sparkle. I’m so grateful that I noticed.”
“By living the grateful we may not feel, we can begin to feel the gratitude that we live,” says Robert Emmons, University of California, Davis.
His colleague Jeffrey J. Froh, at Hofstra, says, “Children as well as adults benefit from gratitude,” and he is trying to teach his 4-year-old to develop grateful thinking even in adversity. He told me the story of when his little boy came home from playschool and said, “My friends were mean to me today.”
To paraphrase the conversation, he was able to remind his son that he still has a best friend. And added, “Think about how lucky you are!”
Gratitude can be a challenge, but it can also be a goal. By developing an attitude of gratitude, we can live within a circle of serenity — one that brings us contentment, a certain peace of mind, and a good night’s sleep.
COPYRIGHT 2011 RITA WATSON/ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/
02/27/2011 01:00 AM EST (Originally published on 02/01/2011)
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