Hi all,
Writing this from the Switzerland. In awe of nature. The small towns and cities are well lit and beautifully decorated, with Christmas just a few weeks away. Most stores have Black Friday sale on.
This is the Thanksgiving weekend. So the emphasis is on Gratitude this issue. When you look around, are you blessed? Most people are. A family that loves you, kids that look up to you, a spouse who loves you. Pause and reflect. Not on what “could be” or “should be” in the future. But what is. What surrounds you right now. And what was. How far you’ve come.
Wherever you’re at, in your journey… pause today. Look around. See the things in your life that you’re grateful for. The things you’re willing to fight to protect. And then take another step forward.
Studies show that the connection of gratitude to physical well-being is vital. One study, in particular, showed that gratitude is good for your heart (Mills et al., 2015). Gratitude lowers blood pressure, decreases stress, and improves sleep. Other studies have shown that a successful practice in gratitude can lessen symptoms of depression and anxiety. Improvements in gratitude improve humans.
Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have done much of the research on gratitude. In one study, they asked all the participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics.
One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had displeased them, and the third wrote about events that had affected them (with no emphasis on them being positive or negative). After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.
Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories. When their week’s assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month.
Of course, studies such as this one cannot prove cause and effect. But most of the studies published on this topic support an association between gratitude and an individual’s well-being.
Gratitude is a powerful human emotion. By conveying and receiving simple ‘thank you’ messages, we can truly derive the pleasure that we seek everywhere else. Gratitude, derived from the Latin word ‘gratia,’ means gratefulness or thankfulness.
Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible.
Gratitude is a way for people to appreciate what they have instead of always reaching for something new in the hopes it will make them happier or thinking they can’t feel satisfied until every physical and material need is met. Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. And, although it may feel contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with use and practice.
Write a thank-you note. You can make yourself happier and nurture your relationship with another person by writing a thank-you letter or email expressing your appreciation of that person’s impact on your life. Make a habit of sending at least one gratitude letter a month. Once in a while, write one to yourself.
Thank someone mentally. No time to write? It may help just to think about someone who has done something nice for you, and mentally thank the individual.
Keep a gratitude journal. Make it a rule to write down a certain number of things you are thankful for per day. Avoid repeating the same things. This will make writing in the journal more challenging as time goes on, but that’s how your awareness and thankfulness will grow. You’ll be challenging yourself to find new things to be thankful for that perhaps you never noticed before.
Count your blessings. When we count our blessings, we note all the wonderful things in our lives. This helps us to appreciate how good life is. Pick a time every week to sit down and write about your blessings — reflecting on what went right or what you are grateful for. As you write, be specific and think about the sensations you felt when something good happened to you.
Pray. People who are religious can use prayer to cultivate gratitude. Prayer isn’t just closing your eyes, folding your hands and speaking. Prayer is a much more meaningful part of religion.
Meditate. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present moment without judgment. It is important to note that gratitude is not just about being thankful for the good things in your life, but it is about being thankful for everything in your life.
Feeling Grateful and Full of Gratitude 10 Minute Guided Meditation
David Steindl-Rast: Want to be happy? Be grateful
This 15-minute talk, from “monk and interfaith scholar” David Steindl-Rast, discusses gratitude and specifically its relationship to happiness. In the talk, Steindl-Rast argues that:
“it is not happiness that makes us grateful” but “gratefulness that makes us happy”.
Since being grateful sounds easier to most of us than being happy, this is an exciting idea.
Want to be happy? Be grateful | David Steindl-Rast
Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.
This 10-minute talk comes from photographer Louie Schwartzberg, with an assist from the above-mentioned Steindl-Rast. In the talk, Schwartzberg presents some of his photographs of nature and explains how they can lead to feelings of gratitude with a story about life from a child’s perspective as well as life from an elderly man’s perspective.
Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.
Brian Doyle: 365 Days of Thank You
This 8-minute talk comes from Brian Doyle, who discusses how a near-death experience led him to start thinking about the role of gratitude in his life.
Specifically, Doyle made a commitment to genuinely thank one person in his life every single day for a full year. This short talk is not just an inspiring story but might cause the viewer to consider how they engage with gratitude in their daily lives.
365 Days of Thank You: Brian Doyle at TEDxYouth@SanDiego 2013
Hailey Bartholomew: 365 Grateful Project
This 12-minute talk from Hailey Bartholomew is, like Doyle’s, centered on a daily, year-long project. Unlike Doyle’s, however, Bartholomew’s focuses on photography and using photography to find gratitude in her life every day.
365 grateful project | Hailey Bartholomew | TEDxQUT
Robert Biswas-Diener: Your happiest days are behind you
This 13- minute talk from positive psychology and happiness researcher Robert Biswas-Diener approaches gratitude by discussing happiness like Steindl-Rast does in his TED Talk. Biswas-Diener argues that most people try to reach happiness by ascribing it to accomplishing things in the future, rather than looking back at happy moments in their pasts.
Your happiest days are behind you: Robert Biswas-Diener at TEDxUNLV
One last one – Oprah’s Gratitude Journal
In this short, not-even-4-minute video, Oprah focuses on the power of gratitude by discussing what she has learned from her own gratitude journal, an exercise she had been practicing for 16 years at the time of the talk.
This video is an extremely quick way to learn about the power of gratitude, and specifically the power of gratitude journals. Since the speaker is Oprah, it may also be easier to convince friends and family to give this video a watch and start considering the power of gratitude in their own lives.
Oprah’s Gratitude Journal Oprah’s Lifeclass Oprah Winfrey Network
If you want to change your state of being, start to be Grateful. The above videos describe the benefits of gratitude and different ways to start cultivating gratitude in your own life.
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
Gratitude Journals A common way to get children to express gratitude is through a gratitude journal. Having to reflect daily on what they appreciate, gets kids primed for the concept of mindfulness. If they don’t want to take the time to write down their gratitude, an equally effective way to start the practice is by asking them to share 3 good things that happened in the last 24 hours.In addition to the 3 good things, ask them to share how they contributed to those 3 good things.
Thank You Notes Encourage kids to write thank you notes to important people in their lives, without the receipt of a gift. It is a powerful activity for them to connect with their loved ones in a deeply meaningful way.
Gratitude Glass Jars A gratitude jar is a great way to infuse gratitude into a group project. Decorate a jar together. Then have each family member put daily entries into the jar. At the end of the month, everyone can share in the family gratitude project by savouring what was appreciated together.
A Gratitude Chalkboard This is a connective daily practice for the family. Imagine the bonding moments when your family simply writes appreciation for everyday things.
Gratitude Walks Going on gratitude walks and having quiet respect for nature are active ways to bring mindfulness and appreciation to the forefront of kids’ minds. Teaching children to leave nature for others to enjoy, instead of picking flowers and removing pieces of nature from the walk, helps them to respect that nature is for everyone.
Letters of Gratitude If you want to encourage your family to become more engaged in their community, letters of gratitude to those, who serve your community, are a great way to start. Firemen, policemen, teachers, army men and any other first responders you can think of, receiving a letter of gratitude for their service to your community is powerful.
The Alphabet Thank You Game The alphabet thank you game is a fun gratitude activity for boring car rides, or any other moments plagued with boredom. For each letter of the alphabet, in a chain, have each participant name something for which they’re thankful.
Random acts of kindness These are another avenue for creating positive affect, but they’re also a great way to bolster gratitude in children. Encourage them to participate in random acts of kindness.
Some gratitude videos children will love to watch
Kid President’s 25 Reasons To Be Thankful!
Gratitude | Teaching Kids to be Thankful | Sunday School Lesson
This toolkit is compiled from works of Kelly Miller. Kelly is a graduate of the Flourishing Center’s CAPP program and published author of Jane’s Worry Elephant.
She is currently the owner of A Brighter Purpose, LLC, a provider in positive psychology coaching services. When she isn’t gleefully helping humans move toward flourishing, she enjoys National Park hikes and spending quality time with her adventurous family.
Only 2 weeks to go for The Growth Retreat, a networking event, I am hosting at Rishikesh from 8-11th December 2022. Every week we bring you a write up by one of the esteemed guest speakers of the Retreat, giving you a sneak peak of what they will be sharing with the participants of the Retreat.
The Story of Gabbbarsingh
by Abhishek Asthana
Born in Muzaffarpur (Bihar) with limited means, to a factory supervisor & a housewife. A city which has the record for the largest number of open sewers in India. Worked hard at school, but a large number of kids who work hard at Tier 3 schools, get overwhelmed when thrown at the bigger stage. Nevertheless trudged along, cracked IIT JEE got a rank of 5433 but not a decent enough rank to get admission in an IIT, (seats were less then) Finished my engineering, Got placed in Samsung R&D. Parents were elated. For them it was the end of it, seeing their kid earn more than them, in a stable job is the end of ambition. Even though I was good at one other thing – Writing. I had a decent blog as well. But that could never be a profession in an Indian household.
I was sent to South Korea for work, It was in January then, it was snowing in Seoul, I was in my Guest house in Gyeonggi Do. thinking about what to post on my blog next. A recent phenomenon was Twitter, where people used to follow each other. A novel concept then, when people were either friends or fans on Social media.
I thought why not have the Sholay multiverse on Twitter, Have a Basanti handle which then would be followed by 10-12 Daaku handles. Just on the silly premise that Basanti will tweet to Veeru that “Pls Help, Daakus are following me”
I created a few handles, Basanti, Kaaliya, Gabbbar etc and then took screenshots of tweets to be put in my blogpost, and to be deleted soon. What happened later changed my life..
TV, News, Print appearances. Being followed by Amitabh Bachchan, to Business leaders, to Cricket Players, Bollywood people.
Met Ramesh Sippy (the guy who made Gabbbar), Played video games with Sachin Tendulkar, Swam with Hardik Pandya, Hugged Anurag Kashyap, Travelled the World, Built two Million dollar businesses.
Raised more then 3 million dollars from 20+ Unicorn founders, Our ad campaigns were displayed in New York to Hollywood people, Worked with 50+ clients both India & Abroad for my 1st company. All coz of that one snowy night in Gyeonnggi Do in South Korea.
A B school graduate Abhishek Asthana, has worked extensively in India and Korea. His experiences include leading the Durex India creative team which won him some coveted awards in India & abroad. Currently Asthana is a team leader at GingerMonkey and is the co-founder at Zorro- a pseudonymous social network platform. You can connect with him on Twitter @gabbbarsingh
If you enjoy reading the newsletter and believe it helps in your journey to deep health, you have a zero cost way to support this endeavour by sharing with your friends, family and on your social media and show gratitude. On Twitter and Facebook or if you have received it as a forward please Subscribe.. Please leave your feedback and suggestions. You can mail me or tweet to @SandeepMall using #goodvibeswithSandeep.
We have also archived all the old issues and you can access them at www.sandeepmall.com. They contain some very good tool kits to take charge of your well being.
See you next week .
Sandeep Mall
The information provided in this newsletter is not medical advice, nor it should be taken as a replacement for medical advice. I am not a medical Doctor so I don’t prescribe anything. Most of the tools suggested are based out of scientific research and my experiments with them. Your healthcare, your wellbeing is your responsibility. Anything we suggest here, please filter it through that responsibility.
