Christmas
Gifts of Gratitude
How do we remain consistently exuberant
and exhilarated by life? What is the secret? It’s
all about gratitude. It’s about being delighted
in the ordinary and surprised and awed by existence — our
own and everyone else's. It’s about sitting around
your Holiday table feeling vitally aware and profoundly
grateful for every breath and awareness, every bite,
every sensation, every bad joke, rewrapped gift and
retold story.
Fifty years ago, Abraham Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology, recognized
the power of gratitude to recharge the soul: He spoke of the capacity to "appreciate
again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure,
wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to
others" as a central gift of what he called "self-actualizing individuals."
When you are in the state of gratitude, you experience a felt sense of wonder,
thankfulness, and appreciation for life, more than simply a pleasant emotion
to experience or a polite sentiment to express. It’s an effervescence,
a visceral sense of joy and heartfelt connection to life.
Recent psychological research shows that:
1. People who are experiencing gratitude have greater resistance and protection
from the destructive impulses of envy, greed and disease.
2. The practice of gratitude as a spiritual discipline may cure excessive materialism
and negative emotions of envy, resentment, disappointment, and bitterness;
3. Gratitude supports well-being by displacing resentment, regret, and other
low level energies that are deterrents to long-term happiness; and
4. Grateful people experience higher levels of positive emotions — happiness,
vitality, optimism, and hope — and greater satisfaction with life.
5. Grateful people have a higher level of reverence for life and every living
thing.
6. Grateful people have better health and a sense of grace.
One way to make sure you keep gratitude in the forefront
of your everyday awareness is to start a gratitude
journal, or a gratitude mantra each day. On your way
in to work instead of cursing the traffic, think about
the fact that you are still here to curse it, that
you have just taken a breath of life into your body.
Be thankful that you have a multitude of choices, probabilities
and possibilities throughout your day and you have
the free will to make any of them as you go about creating
your own reality. Think about the fact that you have
the opportunity to tell those you love how much they
mean to you while you are still here.
Think about the fact that you still have time; time to set things straight,
make things right and express appreciation for all that this life has affords
you. The sunsets. The dawn. The crimson and pale pink of a rose. The scent
of aspen and fir on the mantel. Your friend’s laughter ringing through
the air. The lights twinkling on the tree. The touch of your beloved. The crisp
morning air. The sound of fine music. The taste of great food. The feel of
silk slipping. The unconditional love of your child or your pet. The moments
of true connection. The joy of new truths. The ecstasy in new awareness. Old
photographs. New friends. Making history. The last bow. Pumpkin pie. The warmth
of a fire. Old flannel shirts. New flannel shirts. Every breath. Every breath.
Every breath. We have so much for which to be grateful.
One of things for which we are most grateful, is you. You give us a reason
for being, for writing for telling our stories and truths. You give us a reason
for reaching out and touching, beyond the distance into your homes and hopefully,
your hearts. . You help us create a sense of community and caring. So, this
Holiday, no doubt, one of the things the Arizona Together Family will be most
grateful for is you. We hope your holiday season is filled with wonder and
magnificent moments of gratitude.
Arizona Together
December 2005
Dr. Dina Evan
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