The Gospel According to Martha
4 weeks ago
Showing posts with label Gratitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gratitude. Show all posts
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The Gratitude Diet - The Secret To The Law of Attraction
www.gratitudediet.com Here is a full 10 minutes. Well 9 minutes 44 seconds but who's counting? - Try it, enjoy it, hope you love it!!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Love & Gratitude - Visualization with Mind Movies
Slideshow created with MemoriesOnWeb, I love you all, You've given me the Kiss of Life. There are no need for words, just listen to the lyrics. Love Barbie
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Showing Gratitude: www.law-of-abundance-living.com
Showing gratitude and giving thanks for the blessing in our lives.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thanks Everybody
Thanks Everybody
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."
-Meister Eckhart
Thanksgiving Day is a major holiday in the United States. What a lucky thing for the US. It is not a religious holiday, but it carries as much spiritual significance as a secular holiday can. It is about being thankful. Nobody says what you have to be thankful for. The holiday tradition just suggests that you get together with some people you care about, eat some food and be grateful.
Gratitude is a primary emotion and one that is tied to the experience of joy. A person can’t be grateful and not have some level of pleasant emotion in the process. People who make a habit of counting their blessings tend to be happier than those who don’t.* It is right to give thanks. It is also a good idea.If one were to make a list of one’s blessings, it could be endless. The list of things to be grateful for is only limited by our imaginations. There are innumerable sentient beings, physical objects, social systems, and natural phenomena that support us. In the spiritual realm, one can only try to imagine what benefits we reap beyond the reach of our senses.
We are not in this life alone. We may be lonely, but we do not stand on your own. We are in this with a lot of other people who give their labor and their caring in ways that make our lives possible. Some people, relatives and friends perhaps, contribute directly to our well-being. Millions of others unknown to us contribute to the web of life that supports us. It is good to recall that we can’t do it all alone. We are connected, even if we tend to forget that. We are each being assisted in ways we don’t know and can’t imagine. Recognizing our interdependence is a key to enlightenment, according to many of those who have attained it.Thanksgiving can be an opportunity to loosen our grip on ego. It places us in relationship to the mysterious collection of happy accidents that led to us being at this place at this moment. It invites us to marvel at what is good in life.
Practice:
Take time this week to contemplate all that you have to be grateful for and give thanks.
Be thankful for all the blessings you have received and will receive.
Consider writing a list of things you are grateful for. Consider doing this on a regular basis. Maybe every day.Thank people who have helped you or have somehow made your life better. Do it verbally or in writing or by action.Pray as an act of giving thanks.
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."
-Meister Eckhart
Thanksgiving Day is a major holiday in the United States. What a lucky thing for the US. It is not a religious holiday, but it carries as much spiritual significance as a secular holiday can. It is about being thankful. Nobody says what you have to be thankful for. The holiday tradition just suggests that you get together with some people you care about, eat some food and be grateful.
Gratitude is a primary emotion and one that is tied to the experience of joy. A person can’t be grateful and not have some level of pleasant emotion in the process. People who make a habit of counting their blessings tend to be happier than those who don’t.* It is right to give thanks. It is also a good idea.If one were to make a list of one’s blessings, it could be endless. The list of things to be grateful for is only limited by our imaginations. There are innumerable sentient beings, physical objects, social systems, and natural phenomena that support us. In the spiritual realm, one can only try to imagine what benefits we reap beyond the reach of our senses.
We are not in this life alone. We may be lonely, but we do not stand on your own. We are in this with a lot of other people who give their labor and their caring in ways that make our lives possible. Some people, relatives and friends perhaps, contribute directly to our well-being. Millions of others unknown to us contribute to the web of life that supports us. It is good to recall that we can’t do it all alone. We are connected, even if we tend to forget that. We are each being assisted in ways we don’t know and can’t imagine. Recognizing our interdependence is a key to enlightenment, according to many of those who have attained it.Thanksgiving can be an opportunity to loosen our grip on ego. It places us in relationship to the mysterious collection of happy accidents that led to us being at this place at this moment. It invites us to marvel at what is good in life.
Practice:
Take time this week to contemplate all that you have to be grateful for and give thanks.
Be thankful for all the blessings you have received and will receive.
Consider writing a list of things you are grateful for. Consider doing this on a regular basis. Maybe every day.Thank people who have helped you or have somehow made your life better. Do it verbally or in writing or by action.Pray as an act of giving thanks.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Enhance Hapiness and Health by Cultivating Gratitude
Prof. Robert Emmons studies gratitude for a living as Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology. He has just published Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, an interdisciplinary book that provides a research-based synthesis of the topic as well as practical suggestions.
Alvaro Fernandez: Welcome. Prof. Emmons, could you please provide us an overview of the Positive Psychology field so we understand the context for your research?
Robert Emmons: Sure. Martin Seligman and colleagues launched what was called “positive psychology” in the late 90s as an antidote to the traditional nearly exclusive emphasis of “negative psychology” focused on fixing problems like trauma, addiction, and stress. We want to balance our focus and be able to help everyone, including high-functioning individuals. A number of researchers were investigating the field since the late 80s, but Seligman provided a new umbrella, a new category, with credibility, organized networks and funding opportunities for the whole field.
And where does your own research fit into this overall picture?
I have been researching gratitude for almost 10 years. Gratitude is a positive emotion that has traditionally been the realm of humanists and philosophers, and only recently the subject of a more scientific approach. We study gratitude not as a merely academic discipline, but as a practical framework to better functioning in life by taking control of happiness levels and practicing the skill of emotional self-regulation.
What are the 3 key messages that you would like readers to take away from your book?
First, the practice of gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to achieve - a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer and better quality sleep time.
What are some ways to practice gratitude, and what benefits could we expect? Please refer to your 2003 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, where I found fascinating quotes such as that “The ability to notice, appreciate, and savior the elements of one’s life has been viewed as a crucial element of well-being.”
The most common method we use in our research is to ask people to keep a “Gratitude Journal” where you write something you feel grateful for. Doing so 4 times a week, for as little as 3 weeks, is often enough to create a meaningful difference in one’s level of happiness. Another exercise is to write a “Gratitude Letter” to a person who has exerted a positive influence on one’s life but whom we have not properly thanked in the past, and then to meet that person and read the letter to them face to face.
The benefits seem to be very similar using both methods in terms of enhanced happiness, health and wellbeing. Most of the outcomes are self-reported, but there is an increasing emphasis on measuring objective data such as cortisol and stress levels, heart rate variability, and even brain activation patterns. The work of Richard Davidson is exemplary in that respect, showing how mindfulness practice can rewire some activation patterns in the frontal lobes.
Now, let me give an overview of the paper you mention, titled Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life (note: reference below). The paper includes 3 separate studies, so I will just be able to provide a quick glimpse. More than a hundred adults were all asked to keep a journal, and were randomly assigned to 3 different groups. Group A had to write about things they felt grateful about. Group B about things they found annoying, irritating. Group C about things that had had a major impact on them. 2 out of the 3 different experiments were relatively intense and short term (keeping a daily journal for 2-3 weeks), while one required a weekly entry during 10 weeks.
Across the 3 different studies we found that people in the gratitude group generally evidenced higher-levels of well-being than those in the comparison conditions, especially when compared to Group B (the one journaling about hassles), but also compared to the “neutral” group.
In the longer study, which ran for 10 weeks, we also saw a positive effect on hours of sleep and on time spent exercising, on more optimistic expectations for the coming week, and fewer reported physical symptoms, such as pain. Additionally, we observed an increase in reported connectedness to other people and in likelihood of helping another person deal with a personal problem.
We could then say that we can train ourselves to develop a more grateful attitude and optimistic outlook in life, resulting in well-being and health improvements, and even in becoming better-not just happier- citizens. And probably one can expect few negative side effects from keeping a gratitude journal. What do you think prevents more people from benefiting from these research findings?
Great question, I reflect often on that. My sense is that some people feel uncomfortable talking about these topics, since they may sound too spiritual, or religious. Others simply don’t want to feel obligated to the person who helped them, and never come to realize the boost in energy, enthusiasm, and social benefits that come from a more grateful, connected life.
Judith Beck talked to us recently (interview notes here) about her work helping dieters learn important mental skills through cognitive therapy techniques. You talk about gratitude. Other positive psychologists focus on Forgiveness. How can we know which of these techniques may be helpful for us?
The key is to reflect on one’s goal and current situation. For example, the practice of forgiveness can be most appropriate for people who have high levels of anger and resentment. Cognitive therapy has been shown to be very effective against depression. In a sense both groups are trying to eliminate the negative. Gratitude is different in that it is better suited for highly functioning individuals who simply want to feel better - enhancing the positive.
Prof. Emmons, thank you for your time, and research.
You are welcome.
Alvaro Fernandez: Welcome. Prof. Emmons, could you please provide us an overview of the Positive Psychology field so we understand the context for your research?
Robert Emmons: Sure. Martin Seligman and colleagues launched what was called “positive psychology” in the late 90s as an antidote to the traditional nearly exclusive emphasis of “negative psychology” focused on fixing problems like trauma, addiction, and stress. We want to balance our focus and be able to help everyone, including high-functioning individuals. A number of researchers were investigating the field since the late 80s, but Seligman provided a new umbrella, a new category, with credibility, organized networks and funding opportunities for the whole field.
And where does your own research fit into this overall picture?
I have been researching gratitude for almost 10 years. Gratitude is a positive emotion that has traditionally been the realm of humanists and philosophers, and only recently the subject of a more scientific approach. We study gratitude not as a merely academic discipline, but as a practical framework to better functioning in life by taking control of happiness levels and practicing the skill of emotional self-regulation.
What are the 3 key messages that you would like readers to take away from your book?
First, the practice of gratitude can increase happiness levels by around 25%. Second, this is not hard to achieve - a few hours writing a gratitude journal over 3 weeks can create an effect that lasts 6 months if not more. Third, that cultivating gratitude brings other health effects, such as longer and better quality sleep time.
What are some ways to practice gratitude, and what benefits could we expect? Please refer to your 2003 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, where I found fascinating quotes such as that “The ability to notice, appreciate, and savior the elements of one’s life has been viewed as a crucial element of well-being.”
The most common method we use in our research is to ask people to keep a “Gratitude Journal” where you write something you feel grateful for. Doing so 4 times a week, for as little as 3 weeks, is often enough to create a meaningful difference in one’s level of happiness. Another exercise is to write a “Gratitude Letter” to a person who has exerted a positive influence on one’s life but whom we have not properly thanked in the past, and then to meet that person and read the letter to them face to face.
The benefits seem to be very similar using both methods in terms of enhanced happiness, health and wellbeing. Most of the outcomes are self-reported, but there is an increasing emphasis on measuring objective data such as cortisol and stress levels, heart rate variability, and even brain activation patterns. The work of Richard Davidson is exemplary in that respect, showing how mindfulness practice can rewire some activation patterns in the frontal lobes.
Now, let me give an overview of the paper you mention, titled Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life (note: reference below). The paper includes 3 separate studies, so I will just be able to provide a quick glimpse. More than a hundred adults were all asked to keep a journal, and were randomly assigned to 3 different groups. Group A had to write about things they felt grateful about. Group B about things they found annoying, irritating. Group C about things that had had a major impact on them. 2 out of the 3 different experiments were relatively intense and short term (keeping a daily journal for 2-3 weeks), while one required a weekly entry during 10 weeks.
Across the 3 different studies we found that people in the gratitude group generally evidenced higher-levels of well-being than those in the comparison conditions, especially when compared to Group B (the one journaling about hassles), but also compared to the “neutral” group.
In the longer study, which ran for 10 weeks, we also saw a positive effect on hours of sleep and on time spent exercising, on more optimistic expectations for the coming week, and fewer reported physical symptoms, such as pain. Additionally, we observed an increase in reported connectedness to other people and in likelihood of helping another person deal with a personal problem.
We could then say that we can train ourselves to develop a more grateful attitude and optimistic outlook in life, resulting in well-being and health improvements, and even in becoming better-not just happier- citizens. And probably one can expect few negative side effects from keeping a gratitude journal. What do you think prevents more people from benefiting from these research findings?
Great question, I reflect often on that. My sense is that some people feel uncomfortable talking about these topics, since they may sound too spiritual, or religious. Others simply don’t want to feel obligated to the person who helped them, and never come to realize the boost in energy, enthusiasm, and social benefits that come from a more grateful, connected life.
Judith Beck talked to us recently (interview notes here) about her work helping dieters learn important mental skills through cognitive therapy techniques. You talk about gratitude. Other positive psychologists focus on Forgiveness. How can we know which of these techniques may be helpful for us?
The key is to reflect on one’s goal and current situation. For example, the practice of forgiveness can be most appropriate for people who have high levels of anger and resentment. Cognitive therapy has been shown to be very effective against depression. In a sense both groups are trying to eliminate the negative. Gratitude is different in that it is better suited for highly functioning individuals who simply want to feel better - enhancing the positive.
Prof. Emmons, thank you for your time, and research.
You are welcome.
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