Now that the orgy of entitlement that we call Christmas has passed, hopefully we will be relieved of Christmas commercials showing unhappy people being given gifts by loved ones — and rejecting them as not being “good enough.” The poverty of affluence afflicts many of us at this time of the year.
As long as love is about “things” and not about acts, there can never be an end to the demands for satisfaction. So if you are still feeling that you didn’t get or give enough this Christmas, let me offer a simple solution, proposed by Robert A. Emmons in his book Thanks!
A positive psychologist, Emmons fell into his gratitude project somewhat by accident — researching whether or not a sense of gratitude could be empirically proven to have a positive impact on the life of a person.
To his surprise, his experiments proved that people who made a practice of feeling gratitude or expressing it, indeed felt a demonstrable positive impact on the person’s life, health and longevity.
Here’s a gift you can give any day of the year: the gift of gratitude.
Think of someone in your life who gave you help, guidance or love at a critical point. Then sit down and write them about a 300-word letter. Phone them up and make a date to meet. Go there with your letter and sit and read it to them.
Tell them what they did for you — what kind of state were you in. Remember what they did or said that made a difference.
Contemplate and reveal to them how that difference had an impact on your life, perhaps even to this very day. And thank them. In person.
If distance makes that impossible, tell them by phone. Say it out loud. Read them your letter. Chances are many people will not even know what they did or said made such a different to you. Isn’t that a good reason why your gift will be so meaningful? To them and to you?
That’s not the kind of gift you can put on a credit card with a swipe and a signature. That’s the kind of gift that bites into your own flesh; a kind of blood transfusion that goes both ways.
The strength you took from that person at a critical moment is perhaps transferred back if you can take the time to reflect on the few or many who have helped you live your life to this day.
Being grateful to others is good for your heart. Honest! It’s scientific.
According to the HeartMath research, your heart is a powerful electro-magnetic generator (http://www.heartmath.org/). We are transmitters and receivers of energy from the heart — and it turns out the best thing you can do for your heart is to cultivate a sense of gratitude.
Gratitude makes the heart beat in a more synchronous way.
According to the research, “when an individual is generating a coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that individual’s brainwaves and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur.” Meaning brain waves can harmonize with another person’s heart waves, an effect that “has been measured between individuals up to five feet apart.”
Think of what this means for an affluent society awash in dissatisfaction! A positive change in our state of gratitude might lead to a positive change in social harmony.
Gratitude can begin with the simplest things.
Life itself is a gift. So is everything in it. No matter how much money you make, you can’t live your life without the help of others.
No matter how fancy your car — someone somewhere worked in a factory and screwed on the bolts. And you can only drive your car thanks to the men and women who brave the cold and snow and dark of night to clear and sand the streets. And so on.
Grateful people are pleased with what they have; they may have goals or dreams, but these do not make them ungrateful for their lot. The opposite! They see and feel their present state as one of abundance, and are grateful for it.
Try being grateful every day — every minute of the day.
In 2010, give yourself and others the gift of gratitude. It’s free and offers more rewards than any points or air miles card.
Michelle Stirling-Anosh is a Ponoka freelance columnist.