Being Grateful AFTER the Blessing

by Todd Alan | Nov 28, 2010

This is a very good article about gratitude. Here is a link that you can follow to take an interactive test. Click Here

Being Grateful AFTER the Blessing

By MELINDA BECK

It turns out, giving thanks is good for your health.
A growing body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve psychological, emotional and physical well-being.
Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.
Now, researchers are finding that gratitude brings similar benefits in children and adolescents. Kids who feel and act grateful tend to be less materialistic, get better grades, set higher goals, complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches and feel more satisfied with their friends, families and schools than those who don’t, studies show.
“A lot of these findings are things we learned in kindergarten or our grandmothers told us, but we now have scientific evidence to prove them,” says Jeffrey J. Froh, an assistant professor of psychology at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., who has conducted much of the research with children.
“The key is not to leave it on the Thanksgiving table,” says Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Davis and a pioneer in gratitude research. And, he notes, “with the realization that one has benefited comes the awareness of the need to reciprocate.”
Philosophers as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans cited gratitude as an indispensable human virtue, but social scientists are just beginning to study how it develops and the effects it can have.
The research is part of the “positive psychology” movement, which focuses on developing strengths rather than alleviating disorders. Cultivating gratitude is also a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which holds that changing peoples’ thought patterns can dramatically affect their moods.
It’s possible, of course, to over-do expressions of gratitude, particularly if you try to show it with a gift. “Thanking someone in such a way that is disproportionate to the relationship—say, a student giving her teacher an iPod—will create resentment, guilt, anger and a sense of obligation,” says Dr. Froh.
Gratitude can also be misused to exert control over the receiver and enforce loyalty. Dr. Froh says you can avoid this by being empathic toward the person you are thanking—and by honestly assessing your motivations.
In an upcoming paper in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Dr. Froh and colleagues surveyed 1,035 high-school students and found that the most grateful had more friends and higher GPAs, while the most materialistic had lower grades, higher levels of envy and less satisfaction with life. “One of the best cures for materialism is to make somebody grateful for what they have,” says Dr. Froh.
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Michael Rubenstein for the Wall Street Journal
Gratitude researcher Jeffery Froh reads to his 4-year-old son, James, at bedtime, when James talks about his favorite things from the day.
The Juggle
Gratitude: The Wonder Drug
Much of the research on gratitude has looked at associations, not cause-and-effect relationships; it’s possible that people who are happy, healthy and successful simply have more to be grateful for. But in a landmark study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003, Dr. Emmons and University of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough showed that counting blessings can actually make people feel better.
The researchers randomly divided more than 100 undergraduates into three groups. One group was asked to list five things they were grateful for during the past week for 10 consecutive weeks. The second group listed five things that annoyed them each week and the third group simply listed five events that had occurred. They also completed detailed questionnaires about their physical and mental health before, during and after.
Those who listed blessings each week had fewer health complaints, exercised more regularly and felt better about their lives in general than the other two groups.
Drs. Froh and Emmons conducted a similar study with 221 sixth- and seventh-graders from Candlewood Middle School in Dix Hills, N.Y., an affluent area on Long Island. Although the effects weren’t as dramatic as with the adults, the students in the gratitude group did report a higher level of satisfaction with school and more optimism than the students who listed irritations, according to the study in the Journal of School Psychology in 2008.
As simple as it sounds, gratitude is actually a demanding, complex emotion that requires “self-reflection, the ability to admit that one is dependent upon the help of others, and the humility to realize one’s own limitations,” Dr. Emmons says.
Being grateful also forces people to overcome what psychologists call the “negativity bias”—the innate tendency to dwell on problems, annoyances and injustices rather than upbeat events. Focusing on blessings can help ward off depression and build resilience in times of stress, grief or disasters, according to studies of people impacted by the Sept. 11 terror attacks and Hurricane Katrina.
Some Techniques To Help Kids Be Grateful
Can people learn to look on the bright side, want what they have and be grateful for it? Experts believe that about 50% of such temperament is genetic, but the rest comes from experience, so there’s ample opportunity for change. “Kids and adults both can choose how they feel and how they look at the world,” says Andrew Greene, principal of Candlewood Middle School, who says that realization was one of the lasting legacies of Dr. Froh’s research there.
Some experts believe that children don’t develop true gratitude until they can experience empathy, which usually occurs around age 7. But researchers at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center have shown that infants as young as 6-months old prefer characters who help to those who hinder others. To help lay the groundwork for gratefulness, Dr. Froh says he asks his 4-year-old son, James, each night what was his favorite thing about the day and what he is looking forward to tomorrow.
—Harold Melnick
For older children and adults, one simple way to cultivate gratitude is to literally count your blessings. Keep a journal and regularly record whatever you are grateful for that day. Be specific. Listing “my friends, my school, my dog” day after day means that “gratitude fatigue” has set in, Dr. Froh says. Writing “my dog licked my face when I was sad” keeps it fresher. Some people do this on their Facebook or MySpace pages, or in one of dozens of online gratitude groups. There’s an iPod app for gratitude journaling, too. The real benefit comes in changing how you experience the world. Look for things to be grateful for, and you’ll start seeing them everywhere.
A Buddhist exercise, called Naikan self-reflection, asks people to ponder daily: “What have I received from…? What have I given to…? and What trouble have I caused…?” Acknowledging those who touched your life—from the barista who made your coffee to the engineer who drove your train—and reflecting on how you reciprocated reinforces humbleness and interdependence.
Delivering your thanks in person can be particularly powerful. One study found that fourth-graders who took a “gratitude visit” felt better about themselves even two months later—particularly those whose moods were previously low.
Adopting a more upbeat mind-set helps facilitate gratitude, too. Instead of bonding with friends over gripes and annoyances, try sharing what you’re grateful for. To avoid sounding boastful, focus on giving credit to other people, as in, “My mom took a whole day off from work to get to my game.”
Studies show that using negative, derogatory words—even as you talk to yourself—can darken your mood as well. Fill your head with positive thoughts, express thanks and encouragement aloud and look for something to be grateful for, not criticize, in those around you, especially loved ones. New York psychiatrist Drew Ramsey says that’s an essential tool for surviving the holidays. “Giving thanks for them helps you deal with the craziness that is part of every family,” he says.
Last, if you find you take too much for granted, try the “It’s a Wonderful Life” approach: image what life would be like without a major blessing, like a spouse, a child or a job. In a 2008 study in the Journal of Personal Social Psychology, researchers found that when college students wrote essays in which they were asked to “mentally subtract” a positive event from their lives, they were subsequently more grateful for it than students whose essays simply focused on the event. The “George Bailey effect” was modest, the authors noted, but even small boosts in positive emotions can make life more satisfying.

Create Value – Finding Value in what we give and what we get from life

by Todd Alan | Nov 15, 2010

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. – Aristotle 384 B.C.-322 B.C., Greek philosopher and scientist, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great

I love oatmeal. Today I read on the cylindrical canister of Quaker Oats, “Always a Value”
And I reflected on how true that statement really is in my relationship with Quaker Oats.
The quality of oats is perfect every time, the taste, the consistency. All exactly as I love it. And I love the oats because, when I started out liking them, this is the same taste I remember. Now I can add ingredients to make it taste even better and add a variety to the experience, but the foundation remains solid.

This connection of oats and value can be applied to our lives in how we seek value and create value in our world. I invite you to reflect in this reading, on what you value in your life, and what you do not.

If we find value in something we keep it. When we do not see value in something, we toss it, ignore it, cover it up under piles, or let it go in some form. We either have a purpose for investing our energies in something, or we no longer have a need for that thing, relationship, or mental image in our lives, and we eventually let it go.

As a Life Coach, and one that works with people of all backgrounds in many areas of their lives, I see how we either value things in our lives and honor there presence, or do not and sometimes force ourselves to hold onto extra baggage of things, relationships, and agreements that no longer serve us.

This baggage and how to release it to create and find value in those things that really matter to us is what I write about today.

If you are at a place in your life where I hear yourself saying things like:
“I want to simplify my life”, “I need to get away”, “People want too much from me”, “If I were just more organized then…”

These are signs of the Universal hand on your shoulder pointing out areas where you can release things that are weighing you down. Or revealing ways you can increase your value to the world and to your relationships so that you feel content in who you are.

In having done this process myself this very weekend, I suggest that you may have things in your life that you would love to let go of, shift, or repurpose and get back in touch with that you are tolerating and not taking the time to deal with.

Where are you walking around something in your consciousness that you need to handle?

Are you doing things as you always have but would like to make a change and fear that a chnage will upset more and cause more problems than you started out with?

Do you want to know how a client, a partner or a loved one thinks about you and how they feel but are too scared to ask fr fear of what may come?

All of these types of scenarios block the value and purpose we give into the world and that we take in.  Opening the channels of truth and value will bring more into your life and open paths where you can be of value from your highest purpose.

Personal inventory

I invite you to ponder these simple questions:

1 – What do I truly value in my life? (relationships, home, career, talents, health, wisdom,  abilities, possessions)
2 – What in my life feels like a burden to hold onto, to avoid, or to ignore?

3- What can I do to shift how things are in my life right now, today, to view the situation from a different angle?

4 – What do I truly need to let go of to feel more relaxed and at ease?

5 – Where am I doing what others think I should do and not hearing my own voice?

Taking a personal inventory allow us to open up to new possibilities that we may not be seeing. Asking the question, has the Universe guide us to the answers.

Assess the value you are to people in your life. What do you bring to the table? And do you bring it consistently?
1 – Where do you lift them up people you are in relationship with?
2 – How do they see the value you bring to them?
3 – Is the value you bring consistent and of the quality you hope to be known for?

If it has changed over the years, you may want to get back in touch with those relationships, and or agreements you have with your boss, with yourself, with your family and see how your value is being perceived right now.

Inventory for your friends, family, co-workers, clients, and bosses

You can copy and paste these questions into a note to them and see how they respond.

What do you value most about our relationship?
Have I kept up the level of value that you have found in our relationship?
Where can I create more value for our relationship? How can I better serve?

This type of understanding will help in all areas of your life, with your loved ones, friends, peers, co-workers, bosses.

When you create value for others, value comes into your world in magical ways.

Be open and ready to learn in the process. Here is to you creating value in your world.

Tina Marie
“The Evokateur”