Developing a ‘gratitude attitude’
In a society where we have so much but never stop wanting more, and where violence and natural disasters seem to dominate the news, gratitude, ‘the mother of all virtues,’ is not easy to nurture.
IF THE SUN SET JUST ONCE a decade, we would be awed by its beauty and consider it something of a miracle, observed the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
It’s true that the routine rising and setting of a remarkable celestial body that cooks at 15 million degrees Celsius, and into which one million Earths could fit, elicits little wonder, or gratitude; mostly regret that it sets too early this time of year.
It takes more than the sun to move us. But the sun, moon and Earth lined up for a rare solar eclipse? That does the trick, which is why the August eclipse created such a stir.
In this age, gratitude of the deep, genuinely felt variety does not come easily, not even at Thanksgiving, the holiday meant to pay homage to it.
Research suggests that cultivating feelings of gratitude offers tangible benefits to your mental and physical health, says Randi McCabe, psychologist-in-chief at St. Joseph’s Healthcare.
It takes effort to develop a “gratitude attitude” — patients she treats for “perfectionism” struggle the most with it, but that goes for everyone.
Gratitude, the “mother of all the virtues,” as the Roman orator Cicero put it, is elusive in a society where we have so much yet never stop feeling entitled to more, and where violence and natural disasters seem to dominate the cultural conversation.
Put another way: we all too frequently covet what could be, and perpetually lament what is in our world.
THE NEW BEN STILLER movie “Brad’s Status” channels that zeitgeist. Stiller plays a 47-year-old man with a solid family and work life, but who is wracked with anxiety that he’s not measuring up to achievements revealed in social media “status” updates of his friends.
Brad is, one reviewer wrote, a victim of “the life-comparison trap … of the late night Instagram scroll.”
At one point, Brad laments to his wife of their existence: “We’ve plateaued.”
Facebook and the like would seem to offer a forum for expressing gratitude, but can also simply serve to trumpet accomplishments to generate short-lived self-affirmation, suggests Greg Evans, vice-president of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association.
“Gratitude works best when it is genuine; a real, felt personal emotion,” he says.
Gratitude flows from the notion, long expressed through religious faiths, of being deeply mindful that you have blessings for which you are undeserving, and that should be requited; that you should give back, that you “owe.”
It’s about more than just regularly saying “thanks,” which is perhaps the most flippantly used word in the English language.
Children are taught to say thank you, but that only instills politeness, says Evans, reducing gratitude to “a cognitive exercise.”
(Cognitive exercise indeed: Years ago, I inadvertently developed a kind of Abbott and Costello routine with my toddler son, as I drilled the please/thank you rote response. When someone handed him a cookie, I’d interject, “What do you say?” and then prompt him too quickly with, “Thank you” and he would respond politely: “You’re welcome.”)
We come by our incapacity for gratitude honestly. Psychologists say the instinct to desire what others have is part of our outdated evolutionary hard wiring, going back to ancient times when that mindset was necessary for survival.
This instinct fuels what is called the “hedonic treadmill,” meaning the tendency to return to a baseline level of happiness no matter how much you gain, as expectations and desires rise in tandem.
Did the fancy granite countertop you put in the kitchen heighten joy and a sense of gratitude? Not for long.
Moreover, says Evans, we have a “negativity bias” where bad events influence our thoughts and feelings and sense of well being far more than the good events.
You may fleetingly feel gratitude for living in a safe, stable country, but it only lasts until you dwell on the latest hurricane or murderous attack happening elsewhere.
And then when someone urges you to feel gratitude, particularly at a time like Thanksgiving — “you should feel fortunate!”— it might only promote a sense of guilt.
The good news is that gratitude can be a learned feeling, and cultivated even when things are not going well.
“One way to cope with stress or an awful event is to focus on what you have, not what you don’t have,” says McCabe, adding that if you work at it, you can reduce stress, increase empathy for others, and not focus so much on your problems.
In therapy the focus is on appreciating small day-to-day things, of staying in the moment: simply waking up, or the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze, what she calls “micro awareness.”
Faith has long offered a ready portal to gratitude, by stressing the im- portance of giving thanks to something larger than ourselves, even during the toughest times. (Corinthians 2: When we have nothing, we still have everything.)
Chris Krucker, who owns ManoRun Organic Farm in Copetown, feels it, that wonder, when he’s simply planting seeds. Sometimes he will go down on bended knee, not in church, but in the dirt next to his tractor, and silently give thanks for the miracle of the harvest.
He figures anyone watching him assumes he is just fixing the tractor.
Retired Hamilton Presbyterian minister Alan McPherson says gratitude means recognizing society exists for us “through the labours of people we have never met and never will, and in those cases it’s impossible to express gratitude personally, but it is still possible to be grateful, to feel blessed.”
Michael Bowyer, community pastor at Compass Point Bible Church, quotes C.S. Lewis: “Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead.”
Bowyer says that for him, gratitude is “the dance of being in the moment,” of appreciating during even the stormiest moments, the simple act of taking a life-affirming breath.
Sometimes he’ll go down on bended knee, not in church, but in the dirt next to his tractor, to silently give thanks for the miracle of the harvest.
It’s not about turning a blind eye to pain or hardship, says Clarie Gosselin, a chaplain at Hamilton General Hospital who regularly sees patients and families going through their darkest hours.
Rather, she says, it is “noticing in the midst of the pain, kindness, love, and blessings of many kinds. It’s also about putting my problems in perspective. I am reminded every day that I have this one life.”
The two-way street that is gratitude — receiving blessings, and reciprocating them — can be found in many places, including the 541 café on Barton Street East, one block east of Wentworth, at the counter where customers buy, and use, buttons that double for money.
You buy a button (one dollar each), move it from the donate jar to the payment jar, and someone who can’t afford a coffee or meal can have one. About 25 per cent of the customers at the café rely on the buttons.
It feels good. Just ask two 17-year old Cathedral high school students who bought buttons in addition to their bacon and eggs.
“To physically take the button from one jar, and put it in the other, you just feel like you are contributing,” says Carly Arnold.
“When I came to school here, I realized that not everyone is as fortunate. It makes me thankful for what I have,” says Maddy Arnott.
TEN MINUTES NORTHEAST of the 541, down at the beach, Earl Setzkorn is feeling it, gratitude, for a surreal hot October day, basking in his bathing trunks.
His skin is browned, pony-tail-tied hair and unruly goatee bleached the colour of copper by the sun. His straw hat is perched on a stick impaled in the sand.
He says he won his freedom after retiring with a pension after shovelling bricks 40 years at Dofasco. Terrible job, he says, but “I’ve had 10 years to reap the reward, to be a beach bum. Hopefully, I’ll have 10 or 15 more.”
Earl thinks upon the question of gratitude some more. It runs deeper, he says. Today, the day after the Las Vegas massacre, he’s been studying upon it, appreciation for his peaceful country.
He’s venturing into gratitude for the big things now. And to get a heady dose of that, you don’t have to wander far: up the sand dunes to Dieppe Veterans Memorial Park, where the 197 members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry who perished in the infamous 1942 raid are remembered, from Pte. Ray Knight to Pte. William Zolyomy.
Jerzy and Krystyna Kotynia, visiting from Markham, pause on their bike ride, the Canadian, British, French, and U.S. flags flying high above the memorial.
The couple is originally from Poland, a country invaded by both Germany and Russia in that war. Europeans, they had to fight, says Krystyna, so she feels gratitude for the Canadians who fought and died. And until today she had no idea how many Hamiltonians sacrificed.
Back down across the dunes, to the water’s edge, a healthy supply of smooth, flat stones to skip at your feet.
Hamilton’s beach has its imperfect quirks, with the hydro towers and noisy Skyway. But standing in an offshore breeze, looking north, all that is peripheral disappears, the endless horizon and bottomless blue sky fills the frame, and the only sound, water swooshing rhythmically.
You are reduced, beautifully so, by the grandness of creation, the timeless circle of it all, a place that was here long before you arrived, that will be here long after you’re gone, and in that moment it appears like a gift; perspective, blessings and gratitude.
Gratitude is “the dance of being in the moment,” of appreciating during even the stormiest moments, the simple act of taking a life-affirming breath. MICHAEL BOWYER
COMMUNITY PASTOR, COMPASS POINT BIBLE CHURCH