Gratitude Works! E-Book

Robert A. Emmons

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 255

Beschreibung

A purposeful guide for cultivating gratitude as a way of life Recent dramatic advances in our understanding of gratitude have changed the question from "does gratitude work?" to "how do we get more of it?" This book explores evidence-based practices in a compelling and accessible way and provides a step-by-step guide to cultivating gratitude in their lives. Gratitude Works! also shows how religious, philosophical, and spiritual traditions validate the greatest insights of science about gratitude. * New book from Robert Emmons the bestselling author of Thanks * Filled with practical tips for fostering gratitude as a way of life * Includes scientific research as well as religious and philosophical insights to show how gratitude can work in our lives From Robert Emmons, the bestselling author of Thanks, comes a resource for cultivating a life of gratitude practices.

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: The Challenge of Gratitude

Practices for Cultivating Gratitude

Developing a Grateful Disposition

Chapter 2: Journaling for Gratitude

The Road to Gratefulness

Eyes Wide Open in Gratitude

Three Keys to Gratitude Journaling

Why Newness Matters

Does Gratitude Journaling Change the Brain?

Chapter 3: Beyond the Journal: Gratitude Letters and Visits

There’s nothing like a Gratitude Visit

The Art and Science of Letter Writing

Thanks in the Workplace

Making Grateful Kids

It doesn’t matter How long it Takes

Chapter 4: Growing Gratitude Through Spiritual Disciplines

Gateways to Gratitude

Putting it All Together

Chapter 5: The Biggest Obstacle to Gratitude—and Its Remedy

I deserve this, so no Thanks

Where’s the Grade I Paid for?

Gratefully Ever After

Humility and Gratitude

Chapter 6: Gratitude, Suffering, and Redemption

Bad to Good

Coping Gratefully

Grateful for Everything

Chapter 7: The Twenty-One-Day Gratitude Challenge

Overview of the Twenty-One-Day Challenge

Three Blessings: Days One, Eight, and Fifteen

To Whom for What? Days Two, Nine, and Sixteen

The Gifted Self: Days Three, Ten, and Seventeen

Looking to the Future: Days Four, Eleven, and Eighteen

The Absence of Blessing: Days Five, Twelve, and Nineteen

The Gratitude Letter: Days Six, Thirteen, and Twenty

Bad To Good: Days Seven, Fourteen, and Twenty-One

Reflections

Additional Readings

About the Author

Index

Cover image: ©aleksandarvelasevic/istock

Cover design: JPuda

Copyright © 2013 by Robert A. Emmons. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Emmons, Robert A.

Gratitude works! : a twenty-one-day program for creating emotional prosperity / Robert A. Emmons. — First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-13129-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-41905-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-42085-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-43372-0 (ebk)

1. Gratitude 2. Gratitude—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Happiness. I. Title.

BF575.G68E458 2013

179’.9—dc23

2012048780

FIRST EDITION

Preface

Consider these recent headlines: “Want to Be Happier? Be More Grateful,” “The Formula for Happiness: Gratitude Plays a Part,” “Teaching Gratitude, Bringing Happiness to Children,” and my personal favorite, “Key to Happiness Is Gratitude, and Men May be Locked Out.”

Buoyed by research findings from the field of positive psychology, the happiness industry is alive and flourishing in the United States. Each of these headlines includes the explicit assumption that gratitude should be part of any twelve-step, thirty-day, or ten-key program to develop happiness. In modern times gratitude has become untethered from its moral moorings, and collectively we are worse off because of this. When the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero stated that gratitude was the queen of the virtues, he most assuredly did not mean that gratitude was merely a stepping stone toward personal happiness. Gratitude is a morally complex disposition, and reducing this virtue to a technique or strategy to improve one’s mood is to do it an injustice.

Even restricting gratitude to an inner feeling is insufficient. In the history of ideas, gratitude is considered an action (returning a favor) that is not only virtuous in and of itself but also valuable to society. To reciprocate is the right thing to do. In a book whose title translates “On Duties,” Cicero wrote, “There is no duty more indispensable that that of returning a kindness.”1 Cicero’s contemporary, Seneca, maintained that “he who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt.”2 Neither believed that the feeling involved in returning a favor was particularly crucial. Conversely, across time, ingratitude has been treated as a serious vice, a greater vice than gratitude is a virtue. Ingratitude is the “essence of vileness,” wrote the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and David Hume opined that ingratitude is “the most horrible and unnatural crime that a person is capable of committing.”3

Don’t get me wrong. Gratitude does matter for happiness. As someone who for the past decade has contributed to the scientific literature on gratitude and well-being, I would certainly grant that. The tools and techniques of modern science have been used to increase understanding of the nature of gratitude and why it is important for human flourishing more generally. From childhood to old age, accumulating evidence documents the wide array of psychological, physical, and relational benefits associated with gratitude. Yet I have come to the realization that by taking a “gratitude lite” approach we have cheapened gratitude. Gratitude lite does not do justice to its complexities. Gratitude is important not only because it helps us feel good but also because it inspires us to do good. Gratitude heals, energizes, and transforms lives in myriad ways consistent with the notion that virtue is its own reward and produces other rewards.

To give a flavor of these research findings, dispositional gratitude has been found to be positively associated with qualities such as empathy, forgiveness, and the willingness to help others. For example, people who rate themselves as having a grateful disposition perceive themselves as having more socially helpful characteristics, expressed by their empathetic behavior and emotional support for friends within the last month. In our research, when people report feeling grateful, thankful, and appreciative in their daily lives, they also feel more loving, forgiving, joyful, and enthusiastic. Notably, the family, friends, partners, and others who surround them consistently report that people who practice gratitude are viewed as more helpful, more outgoing, more optimistic, and more trustworthy.

Cicero, Seneca, Kant, and the other philosophers knew long ago what modern social science is now demonstrating. Gratitude takes us outside our scope so we see ourselves as part of a larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships, relationships that are mutually reciprocal. In this sense, similar to other social emotions, it functions to help regulate relationships, solidifying and strengthening them. Herein lies the energizing and motivating quality of gratitude. It is a positive state of mind that gives rise to the passing on of the gift through positive action. As such, gratitude serves as a key link in the dynamic between receiving and giving. It is not only a response to kindnesses received but it also motivates the recipient’s future benevolent actions.

Through the ages, the virtue of gratitude has played a central role in debates over human nature. Yet outside of happiness, gratitude’s benefits are rarely discussed these days; indeed, in contemporary US society, we’ve come to overlook, dismiss, or even disparage the significance of gratitude as a virtue. Expressions of gratitude to God by athletes and other public figures are met with cynicism. How can modern social science research on gratitude inform decisions on the perennial ethical questions of how one should act and what type of person should one be? Is gratitude vital to living the good life? How encouraging would it be to see headlines such as “Gratitude Powers a Sense of Purpose,” “More Grateful Teens Less Likely to Be Depressed, Delinquent,” “Gratitude Leads to Generous Giving,” and “Gratitude Works! How Gratitude Prompts Corporate Social Responsibility”? I am encouraged to report that research along these lines is under way but much more is needed. Only then will modern research catch up with the timeless insights of the ancient moralists.

LOOKING AHEAD

Because it is a virtue, gratitude, at least initially, requires mental discipline. Virtues do not come easily, and in some sense, we need them as they act as a counterpart to our natural tendencies. This is the paradox of gratitude: although the evidence is clear that cultivating gratitude in our life and in our attitude to life allows us to flourish, it can be difficult to accomplish. Developing and sustaining a grateful outlook on life is easier said than done because the choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. We can put the science of gratitude to work for us, however. A number of evidence-based strategies, including self-guided journaling, reflective thinking, letter writing, and gratitude visits, have shown to be effective in creating sustainable gratefulness. We will explore all of these practices in the chapters that follow. They will help you become good at gratitude. You will find that each time you make the choice for gratitude, the next choice will be a little easier, a little more automatic, a little freer. In doing so, we open ourselves up to the limitless possibilities for a fullness that life has to offer us.

At the core of these practices is memory. Gratitude is about remembering. If there is a crisis of gratitude in contemporary life, as some have claimed, it is because we are collectively forgetful. We have lost a strong sense of gratitude about the freedoms we enjoy, a lack of gratitude toward those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, and a lack of gratitude for all the material advantages we have. Furthermore, we don’t even realize that we have become forgetful because we can’t ever remember being different. The machinery in our minds that causes us to forget our benefits operates so seamlessly that we cannot detect its workings. However, grateful people draw on positive memories of being the recipients of benevolence, a giftedness that is neither earned nor deserved. This is why religious traditions are able to so effectively cultivate gratitude—litanies of remembrance encourage gratitude and religions do litanies very well. The scriptures, sayings, and sacraments-of-faith traditions inculcate gratefulness by drawing believers into a remembered relationship with a Supreme Being and with members of their faith community. A French proverb states that gratitude is the memory of the heart. The memory of the heart includes the memory of those we are dependent on just as the forgetfulness of dependence is unwillingness or inability to remember the benefits provided by others. Do you want to be a grateful person? Then remember to remember. This book will show you how.

Notes

1. Howard Becker, Man in Reciprocity (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), 226.

2. Edward J. Harpham, “Gratitude in the History of Ideas,” in The Psychology of Gratitude, ed. Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough (New York: Oxford University Press), 19.

3. Ibid., 20.

Acknowledgments

If I am to be faithful to the teachings in these pages then the acknowledgments section would have to be as long as the remainder of this book. The list of names who have contributed in one way or another to the ideas I present is very long. I am tempted to fall back on Maureen Stapleton’s Academy Award–winning speech (“I want to thank everybody I ever met in my entire life”) and be done with it.

But that would be the cowardly way out. I have had the privilege of working with a number of researchers in the field of gratitude studies and have benefitted from the contributions that all of them have made. They deserve to be acknowledged. Many have become good friends. These include Phil Watkins, Alex Wood, Jeffrey Froh, Mike McCullough, Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Charlie Shelton.

I remain gratefully indebted to my agent, Esmond Harmsworth, of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth literary agency. Esmond has been wonderfully supportive in transforming my writing from dry journal prose into material suitable for a general audience. My editor at Jossey-Bass, Sheryl Fullerton, was everything I could have asked for in an editor. This book exists because of her vision and skill in assisting me in moving from a collection of partially organized ideas to a coherent finished product. I thank her for helping me present my ideas with greater clarity and conviction.

I gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, especially to Kimon Sargeant, vice president of human sciences at the foundation. Stephen Post and the Institute of Unlimited Love also generously supported some of the research reported in this book. Quite apart from research funding, I have deeply valued my relationship with both of these men over the past decade.

A special thank you goes to Clara Morabito. You will read about this special woman in chapter 1. She has been an inspiration and I have cherished getting to know her over the past couple of years. Thank you, Clara, for spreading the word about the healing power of gratitude. Clara also read and commented on earlier drafts of the chapters. I am appreciative for her input.

My personal role model for gratitude has been my friend Doug Reid. I don’t know how to acknowledge his influence except to say that he is the most grateful person that I know. Doug’s gratitude is palpable, infectious, and imperishable. I am indebted to him for the title Gratitude Works! and for allowing me to use it. He inspires me to become a more grateful person.

I have learned much about gratitude from my wife, Yvonne, and our two sons, Adam and Garrett. If I have failed to express ample gratitude to them, it is not because they have not provided me with enough reasons to do so. I dedicate this book to them.

Chapter 1

The Challenge of Gratitude

From time to time I receive correspondence from individuals who have become aware of my research on the benefits of gratitude and have become inspired to live more grateful lives. None has affected me quite so much as an e-mail I received in late January 2011 from Clara Morabito of Oldsmar, Florida (a suburb of Tampa). She contacted me to tell me about two events that might seem slight but that had massively changed her life. One of the events was a poem entitled that she composed shortly before her birthday a few years before: