Giving Thanks through Gratitude Letters

Gratitude is a powerful mood elevator.  At least that’s what psychologists, neurologists, as well as anyone experienced in fighting back from disappointment will confirm.  It seems that thinking and caressing thoughts that count our blessings actually makes us feel optimistic and positive.  Once the gratitude centers our brain awaken they mix up a batch of warm brain chemicals that energize our entire body that animates feelings of well-being.

In fact, this “optimism effect” is so powerful that renowned psychologists such as Martin Seligman, PhD. are prescribing gratitude letters as a way to fight depression, anger, and hopelessness.

How to Write a Gratitude Letter

1. A gratitude letter begins with thinking of a person you deeply appreciate.  Someone who may have gone out of their way to help you, offer encouragement or given you an opportunity.  It may be someone far back in your life history, a teacher, a coach, or a grandparent who said or did something that made a positive difference in your life.
2. Once you identify the person you write a letter detailing exactly what that special person did and why it had such an impact on you.  Try to be as specific as possible.
3. To maximize the mutual impact of a gratitude letter you don’t mail it at first.  If the person lives nearby you make it a priority to see them in person and read them the letter.  If they live far away you read it to them over the phone.
4. Then you give or mail them the letter.

Gratitude is Life Changing

The mutual impact of a gratitude letter can be life changing for both the giver and the receiver.  At a minimum, it’s life affirming.

And today there is nothing more important than affirming life and its amazing opportunities.  Yes, I know that what’s happening in our wider world is threatening, unfair, and the joint product of towering amounts of stupidity and greed.  But we don’t live day-to-day in the wider world.  We live in our world.  And no matter what, and I mean no matter what, we can make our world better today and tomorrow.

I have personally met so many people whose outer lives were destroyed by war, poverty, divorce, bankruptcy, illness, joblessness, betrayal, or natural disaster that simply refused to let their trauma’s define them.  Their subsequent victories are the direct result of their inner strength.  Their commitment to string together a chain of positive decisions to make today better that led them to live inspiring lives.  I am thinking of two close friends who survived bankruptcies to become millionaires doing work they love.  I am thinking of two divorcees who were betrayed by spouses who remarried and are living happily ever after.  I am thinking of a girl who lost her mother to a tragic death who started a foundation to mentor parentless children to live a happier life.  I am thinking of Abraham Keech, one of Southern Sudan’s lost orphan boys who grew up, earned a college degree, and has recently built a school in his old village in Africa.  All of these people are like you and me.  No one gave them permission to be extraordinary.  They just choose to be.

Of all the things I am most grateful for, it is perhaps our unique ability to imagine a future better than our present circumstances and to choose to do something extraordinary.  That may be our greatest gift.

Of all the great things we can do at this Thanksgiving, maybe the greatest is to write and deliver a gratitude letter.  And then as our moods are lifted to imagine what we might do to make tomorrow better.  And just start.  That’s how the world changes.

Will Marre

(Feel free to post your gratitude letter for all to read.)