The Whispers of Gratitude

 I sat on the floor for 30 minutes, trying to convince myself to go for a run.

I typed out a text to my running group, letting them know I would see them in a week. . .or a month.

My finger hovered over the send button for a few seconds before I erased the text and suited up.

I spent most of the time on the run complaining about how hard things have been in my day job. 

• Too much work to do.
• Inadequate human resources to get the work done.
• Inadequate systems to streamline the work.
• Inferior components requiring too much rework and re-engineering.
• Etc.

I came home from that run to a text message from my boss saying that an operations manager we’ve been recruiting for several weeks accepted our offer last night. In the short run, that means more work for me as I train him, but in the long run he’s going to make my life much easier.

Have you ever stopped to consider why complaints seem to echo loud and long while gratitude comes in whispers?

There are a number of factors that impact why this seems to hold true for so many. Here’s a quick list of three common factors:

1. Negativity Bias: Are humans wired to be more negative? Negative experiences tend to weigh heavier than positive ones which is why it seems we lean more toward being negative.
2. Emotional Intensity: Emotions such as anger, disappointment, and frustration often carry more emotional intensity than emotions like happiness and gratitude. That makes experiences accompanied by more intense emotions show up a lot more readily when we’re recounting experiences.
3. Coping Mechanism: Complaining is a coping mechanism. Rather than deal with difficult emotions, we try to cope with them, often by expressing our anger, disappointment, or frustration with someone not related to the difficulty we’re experiencing. Sometimes, a venting session can help us move beyond a trivial experience without having to address it with related parties. Often, however, these coping mechanisms are a way of avoiding dealing with something that merits resolution.

While perhaps less natural for many of us (it certainly is for me), there is perhaps no more fitting way to increase happiness than expressing gratitude. As one unknown author put it, “It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” 

Taking time to acknowledge the good, even when it might be buried in a difficult situation, opens the door to more goodness. Our minds are primed to see the things we focus on. If you’re shopping for a new vehicle and have a particular make and model in mind, you’ll begin to see it “everywhere”. The same is true of gratitude. The more gratitude you express, the easier it will become to find gratitude in more experiences and areas of your life.

While expressing gratitude for the obvious things is great, the practice of gratitude requires the development of a mindset that sees things you might otherwise miss; a bit like finding beauty among thorns. Let’s call that deep gratitude.

There are two fundamentals of practicing deep gratitude:

1. Be intentional. To begin practicing an “attitude of gratitude,” take a few moments each day and just observe. Focus on just one interaction that’s not quite so obvious for which you are grateful. Don’t give up after ten or fifteen seconds of contemplation. If after a minute or two nothing comes to mind, pick an interaction that’s a bit more obvious. Consciously review the reason (or reasons) why you have gratitude for the people involved or the experience you had. 
2. Be consistent. This is where I struggle the most. I can practice intentional gratitude for a day or two then get distracted by a difficult experience that tends to play on repeat in my mind. Fight the rumination by expressing gratitude. Constantly coming back to gratitude will make it easier to move away from rumination to meaningful growth from experiences.

The author of Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne, noted, “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

Our hearts are several times the size of Piglet’s, so there’s little cardiac risk involved in expressing gratitude, even when it seems your heart might burst.

Go ahead. Give it a try. Piglet might just be right.