When we feel gratitude, we feel better—physically and mentally. When, having received something from others, in return we give a part of ourselves, it becomes easier for us not only to endure stress, but also to live, realizing that we need each other.
“Thank you! These three syllables can change our lives,” said Robert Emmons, a social psychologist and professor at the University of California (USA). Of course, we are not talking about those formulas of gratitude that we automatically pronounce when the person walking in front holds the door in front of us or the person sitting at the common table passes salt to us.
The feeling of gratitude is beneficial only when we express it meaningfully. It happens like this: first we note that we have received a gift (a material gift, help or moral support) that has a certain value (the efforts made by the giver), and then we recognize that “the source of blessings is outside ourselves.” This source may be another person, but also life itself.
See life positively
To determine how much gratitude affects our lives, Robert Emmons and his colleague Michael McCulloch conducted an interesting experiment. They invited several hundred volunteers to study and divided them into three groups. The first group wrote down all their experiences daily in a diary; the second – only unpleasant; and in the third group, each participant had to write down daily the names of people and events that made him feel grateful.
Ten weeks later, the third group was found to be more positive than the rest: its participants were engaged in daily activities with pleasure, and looked to the future with optimism. And that’s not all: they were less worried about their health and took better care of themselves, in particular by exercising.
Changes for the better happen when we are in the mood for gratitude: the more often we try to find reasons for this, the easier it is to find them. In addition, the more often we thank others, the more they appreciate us, the warmer they treat us, and we have new reasons for gratitude.
We seem to be included in the endless cycle of goodness in the universe. How does this mechanism work?
“Gratitude helps to direct attention to the happy events in your life and distract from feelings of dissatisfaction,” explains psychotherapist Margarita Zhamkochyan. – It does not cancel negative emotions, but encourages us to experience positive emotions more often, drawing attention to our successes and opportunities that open before us. As a result, we generally begin to view life more positively.”
Therefore, it is so important to be able to move from dissatisfaction (“I don’t have this, I lack this”) to gratitude: (“I am satisfied with what I have”). Reflecting on this, Michael McCulloch argues that “gratitude can be a viable alternative to the materialism that eats away like an ulcer in today’s overconsumer society.”
And finally, adds Margarita Zhamkochyan, “experiencing gratitude, we stop focusing on ourselves and pay attention to other people.” Such a centrifugal redistribution of attention allows us not only to take a break from the oppressive focus on ourselves, but also to establish warm relations with the world and the people around us.
step forward
“To give thanks, to give a blessing, to pay tribute is to share one’s feeling with another,” explains the philosopher André Comte-Sponville. “The pleasure that I owe to you, we experience together.”
Gratitude is like a hand extended to another person in response to his help, support or gift. Therefore, from gratitude to others for the fact that we feel like a person worthy of attention and love, to appreciation as a symbol of gratitude is just a step. He requires us to realize one simple truth: in order to live, we need each other.
It is the look of another person that initially makes us feel that we really exist, and then confirms our worth. Without receiving recognition from others, it is impossible to feel your own significance. To see this, we can recall the feeling that seizes us when we do not receive the slightest appreciation for the service we have rendered.
Ingratitude hurts us: we feel as if recognition is denied not to our gift, but to the whole personality.
“Gratitude does not require heroism,” says the Italian philosopher Piero Ferrucci. “It does not depend on our talent, strength or originality. It is based on our ability to be vulnerable, that is, to accept help from others and rejoice in this support.”
Like a film actor who celebrates his Oscar with endless gratitude, we reflect in the words of appreciation that which is in us and at the same time does not depend on us. This view is typical of the Stoic philosophers, who have always placed humility above vanity.
So, in the first lines of his Meditations, the ancient Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius mentions everyone to whom he owes his best qualities: “From Verus, my grandfather, I inherited cordiality and gentleness. From the glory of my parent and the memory he left behind – modesty and masculinity … From the mother – piety, generosity, abstinence not only from bad deeds, but also bad thoughts. And also – the simplicity of a way of life, far from any luxury … “
Such a view of life also makes it possible to realize one’s limitations, which means it helps to accept oneself as one is.
How Children Learn Appreciation
In early childhood, the child says “thank you” automatically, repeating after his parents, and only by the age of six or seven begins to thank quite meaningfully..
“Mom baked a pie especially for us!” – the 5-year-old daughter tells her father, with whom they have just returned from the rink. From what he says in response, from the ability of parents to thank each other and children for help or a gift received, depends on how easily the child masters the skill of gratitude.
This feeling not only unites, but also has a “humanizing” function: participating even in a formal exchange of pleasantries, the child understands that he cannot live in the power of his impulses, and perceives himself as a person capable of existing with other people.
“At the age of three or four, gratitude is formal,” says child psychologist Tatyana Bednik. – The child is not aware of the intentions of the one who gives him something, and is not able to appreciate this gesture, and also cannot understand what the other thought of him and his pleasure. The situation of exchange – you give me something, and I thank you – is realized by about six or seven years. At this time, the child’s brain matures in order to thank meaningfully.
But true gratitude requires a more mature psyche. This feeling – like, for example, courage – cannot be felt on command. The child becomes bolder when he sees how the elders overcome their fears and keep their worries at bay. The same thing happens with gratitude: observing it in their parents, children absorb this feeling.
Emotion of Wisdom
Humility, generosity, mercy are just a few of the virtues that evoke gratitude and themselves originate in it. “I would not like to possess any quality to such an extent as the ability to be grateful,” Cicero admitted. “For it is not only the greatest virtue, but also the mother of all other virtues.”
Robert Emmons and Michael McCulloch became interested in gratitude in search of an answer to the question: why do deeply religious people often feel happier than others? Scientists have come to the conclusion that believers are more likely to experience a sense of gratitude than non-believers. After all, gratitude, notes the philosopher Beranger Casini, “is the acceptance of everything that fate brings us, and in this it is akin to the grace of God.”
“The voice of gratitude is much quieter than the groan of pain, but it has more themes, variations, names,” says Orthodox priest Vladimir Zelinsky. “Gratitude is always a coded message about God, which we learn about even before we master the language or just the alphabet of faith.”
Gratitude cultivates in us the ability to live here and now, which the Buddha called for
It is akin to the state of complete awareness achieved through meditation. Gratitude is an openness to everything that fate brings us: both sorrows and joys. It is an unconditional acceptance that reconciles us with our whole life – both with the present and, of course, with the past.
“When we give thanks, we rejoice in what has already happened,” reminds André Comte-Sponville. “Gratitude is the joy of memory, it is also love for our past.” It gives us “new found time” and relieves us of regrets or longing for the past that tormented the soul.
Gratitude heals us from the suffering associated with the finiteness of human existence, limited opportunities, the transience of time, anger, resentment, and loneliness. Gratitude is not the same as happiness, but it allows us to experience it!