I started wondering about the words gratitude and grateful this morning and why ‘grateful’ kind of ‘grates’ on me. And, I realised that it probably comes from being told (as a child): “You should be grateful for _____________, the parent told the child…think of all the children who don’t ________. Fill in the blanks. Most of us have said this or have been told this at some point in our lives.
Anyway, I decided to look up the root of the word “grateful” and came across the following question on a website forum, which made me smile:
If “grate” isn’t a word, why is there a word “grateful” (and “gratitude”)?
The answer given to the question is:
It has nothing to do with modern “grates” but everything to do with gratitude.
Here is the root of grateful according to the Online Etymology dictionary :
“Grateful” (adj): 1550s, “pleasing to the mind,” also “full of gratitude, disposed to repay favors bestowed,” from obsolete adjective grate “agreeable, pleasant,” from Latin gratus “pleasing”…
Grateful often expresses the feeling and the readiness to manifest the feeling by acts, even a long time after the rendering of the favor; thankful refers rather to the immediate acknowledgment of the favor by words. [Century Dictionary]”
And from Wikionary:
From Proto-Indo-European *gʷr̥Htos, *gʷerH- (“to welcome, greet, praise”). Cognates include Sanskrit गृणाति (gṛṇā́ti, “to praise”), Old Church Slavonic жрьти (žrĭti) and Old Prussian girtwei (“to praise”).
I actually like thankful and appreciation, which are more neutral for me.
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” – Oprah Winfrey
Okay, so why show gratitude/thanks/appreciation?
We’ve been culturally conditioned to focus on what we don’t have, rather than being thankful for what we have or have achieved. When you focus on what you don’t want it creates an underlying vibration of ‘lack’ ,negativity and complaining, which affects you mood and the mood of the people around you.
Neuroscientists have shown that when thoughts are predominantly negative, the brain rewires its circuitry making it easier and faster to trigger negative thoughts over positive ones.
Over time, if your brain mainly fires off synapses that represent negative thoughts, this can affect your mental and physical health. When you’re negative, you release the stress hormone cortisol and elevated levels of cortisol raises blood pressure, lowers immune function, reduces bone density, increase the risk of heart disease, weight gain, cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a plethora of other negative ailments.
At a collective level, negativity can be even more destructive. I remember, about fifteen years ago, being on a meditation camp in India and our guru saying that “negativity is contagious” and that “we all created Saddam Hussein.” I was a little puzzled. “How have I created Saddam Hussein”, I wondered? It was some time later that I finally realised what he meant – negativity on a global vibrational scale helps to create brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein.
If you are prone to negative thoughts, how can expressing gratitude help you?
According to research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus (a key part of the brain that regulates stress) and the ventral tegmental area (VTA) – part of the “reward circuitry” in the brain that produces the sensation of pleasure. Gratitude can also boost the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is involved in mood control. When you are trying to think of things you are grateful for, you are forced to focus on the positive things in your life and the simple act of searching for answers increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex of your brain and can elevate your mood.
Here are 6 gratitude practices that can help you to be more thankful and appreciative each day.
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Ask yourself, “What am I grateful for today?
Just searching for answers will help you feel more positive.
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Take a few minutes each morning (and/or before you go to bed) to write down everything you appreciate in your life.
When you start your day like this it helps to cultivate a feeling of positivity and receptivity within you and primes you to appreciate your day and vibrationally attract other positive people who may be able to help you get more of what you would like.
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Pay attention to and feel gratitude for the smallest things in life.
As you go about your daily life find things to appreciate: the home you live in, your clothes, furniture, health, the trees, bird song, vibrant colour of flowers, air you breathe, sun that provides warmth and light, food, shops that conveniently provide goods to purchase, clean running water, the car you drive, public transport you take, smile of a stranger, love of family and friends, spend time with other people, give hugs…
If you do this for 3-15 minutes each day, you will re-wire your brain, raise your vibration, feel good more of the time and attract more things into your life to appreciate.
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Appreciate Yourself
Remember to appreciate YOUR positive characteristics, talents and achievements – big and small. It is very important to acknowledge yourself, your contribution and how fabulous you are.
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Recognise the people and support infrastructures that play an important role in your life.
Think of the foods that you eat...in order for food to make it to your table, sunlight, water, soil, care from farmers, technology, harvestinging, packaging, transporting, and much more is needed. Bringing your consciousness and awareness to this process or system that is bigger than yourself and feeling how privileged you are to be a part of something so much larger than yourself will allow gratitude to flow within you.
As Sadhguru puts it, “Gratitude is not an attitude; it is something that flows out of you. If it is just a cultivated attitude, it is not of much significance. People have always told you that the magic words are “thank you,” but gratitude cannot be cultivated; it happens when you are overwhelmed by something or somebody.”
- The practice of yoga can help you to experience gratitude on a deeper level. How can it do this?Because when you practise yoga regularly and make it an integral part of your life, your body-mind-spirit become more receptive to the flow of life. As your body opens and your mind expands into more stillness and you feel your own life force energy flowing, you’ll become more open and attuned to the rhythms of life and the process of receiving.
You expand your range of motion - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually - and are more open to receiving the small and big blessings of life with thanks and appreciation. And when you share these blessings with others, from the heart, the feeling of gratitude naturally flows within you.
When faced with life’s challenges, it can be hard to feel thankfulness. Also, if you believe that you stand alone and achieve everything by yourself then it is hard to feel grateful.
But I think you can always fake it until you make it. This isn't so much cultivating gratitude. The gratitude comes from paying attention to and bringing awareness outside of yourself and placing it on something that you appreciate and knowing that it took more than you to create it.
For example, when I focus on the air that I breathe and how the whole universe supports this, I feel overwhelmed because it is bigger than me. The feeling just flows. As the mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what is imagined, you begin to re-wire your brain for positivityand gratitude even though you’re faking it.
Faking it, isn’t about suppressing negative emotions like anger, anxiety, guilt and shame. Trying to suppress negative emotional experiences tends to be counter-productive. Research using fMRI (a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow) shows that when you suppress emotions, on the surface, you may seem, look and feel that you are fine but internally, the emotional or limbic centre in your brain is just as or even more aroused because you are trying not to feel something.
For me, we have the full range of emotions because each serves a purpose – otherwise why would we as humans have them.
Studies show that instead of suppressing a so-called negative emotion, bring your awareness to it, focus there and then choose a few words that describe your emotion. When you have an emotion that doesn’t feel good, assign it a label e.g. fear, anger, frustration… Consciously recognizing and labelling emotions reduces their impact. It’s best to use metaphoric or symbolic language to describe your experience.
What is metaphoric or symbolic language? Lakoff and Johnson tell us that:
“the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”
Anger could be like ‘steam coming out of your ears’, for example.
When you describe an emotion in a few words, it helps reduce the intensity of the emotion. This is because you activate your pre-frontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic (emotional) system.
If you want to delve a little deeper, you can also ask yourself: what kind of anger/ fear/anxiety /frustration/… ? Is there anything else about it? Where is the anger/fear/anxiety/frustration/…? Does it have a size or shape, Is it inside or outside? It’s like what? These are all Clean questions, developed by David Grove, who says of metaphor:
“metaphor mediates the interface between the conscious and unconscious process” – David Grove
In other words, metaphors allow you to access information that you may not be consciously aware of. And just in case you’re thinking that you don’t use many metaphors, the evidence suggests otherwise. We use one unique metaphor in every 25 words (Graesser et. al.) and approximately 6 metaphors per minute (Pollio et. al).
For example, Lakoff and Johnson have found that in metaphoric language,
“HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN.
I’m feeling up. That boosted my spirits, My spirits rose.
You’re in high spirits. Thinking about her always gives
me a lift. I’m feeling down. I’m depressed. He’s really low
these days. I fell into a depression. My spirits sank.”
Generally, ‘positive’ like happy is perceived as ‘up’ and negative is ‘down’. Gratitude symbolically represents ‘up’.
It’s fascinating when I work with clients who want some kind of change, to facilitate them to discover their unique metaphors and how their metaphors express their way of being in the world. Being immersed in your own ‘metaphor landscape’ enables effective resolution of your issues and creates the conditions for personal transformation to take place.
It’s possible that you may feel resistance to appreciating what you already have, but by persistently doing the gratitude practices outlined in this blog, you’ll begin to change your conditioning and transform your way of being in the world.
Why not kick-start your (new or re-activated) daily gratitude habit by writing down at least three things you are grateful for so far today.
