Make Every Day Thanksgiving!

Of all the people who have ever lived, we are the most fortunate.  Truly.  Some experts estimate that 50 to 70 billion human beings have lived on Earth.  Most lived in conditions we can only term as “life or death.”  A little more than a hundred yeas ago most mothers expected to bury nearly half the children they brought into the world because fatal diseases and accidents stalked every family.  The average marriage lasted fourteen years because one of the spouses died.  Medicine was a primitive art.  Surgery was filthy and insanely painful.  If a common cold became pneumonia, death was virtually certain.  People commonly died from tooth infections.  Few enjoyed the amazing comforts of indoor plumbing until the 1920’s.  And for thousands of years most of the world’s population were exploited by powerful, merciless tyrants who multiplied human suffering by constant war.  Most human beings have never enjoyed human rights, reading or writing, let alone heat or air conditioning.  There is absolutely no doubt—we are fortunate.

But even if we consider our wonderful comforts and advantages, even if we value our personal freedoms to think, act, work and believe according to our own choices, we still surprisingly feel hog-tied by our own frustrations and unmet desires.  We chronically over-focus on what we don’t have, and the greatest threat to our health is our self-induced stress.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  We can feel lasting contentment and large doses of joy.  It is our choice.

Here’s how.

Recent research confirms that many of us are so over-busy and multi-tasking that we have ceased to feel our feelings.  What that means is that positive emotions are now only concepts in our minds rather than authentic emotions.  We say, “I love you” as a closing sentence on every phone call to our spouse, significant other, or children, but it’s simply a verbal habit.  Of course we love them.  We know we do.  We sacrifice for them, we respect them, we even feel empathy when they suffer or succeed, but we no longer feel the genuine emotion of heart grabbing love.  We’re too busy to.

Perhaps the easiest way to think about this problem is to recall your rip-roaring emotions when you first fell in love or held your baby.  There was a time when just being together created moments of intense and deeply satisfying emotions.  You not only knew you loved them, but you felt it big time.  It was like swimming in a warm bath of love.  That’s because you put all your energy into feeling the presence of your beloved.  You held them in unconditional positive regard.  Their flaws and shortcoming were overlooked because you experienced their essential goodness.  That’s the power of being present.  What it takes to feel that way is putting your full energy on the subject of your gratitude.  Whether it is a sunset, a quiet lunch with your beloved, or a noisy dinner with your extended family, be “all in.”  100%, a 1000%.

One habit I have found quite helpful is to practice this kind of presence with deep gratitude first thing in the morning.  Between awakening and getting out of bed I take 3 minutes and take 4 deep breaths.  I try to get the morning oxygen in all the way to my toes.  Then I ask, “What am I most grateful for today?”  I quickly settle on just one thing and then I point all my mental and emotional energy into feeling my gratitude.  I smile.  I try to linger and bring my busy mind back to this singular focus. What I feel in those gratitude-drenched moments is enoughness.  And that feeling of fullness is a kind of spiritual shield that seeks to protect me from creating irrational stress, angry fears and crippling self-doubt.  Well mostly.  Nothing of course works perfectly or all the time.  Yes, I have bad days and disappointments, I still worry and get grouchy, but I also seem to tap into a resilience that is greater than my own smallness.  For that I am very, very grateful.

So what’s the best thing we can do?  Make every day Thanksgiving.

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.)