podcast link:
www.anchor.fm/boscom
Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and
clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at
Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.
In this weekend’s podcast I shall continue exploration of
mental health and wellbeing by looking at the role of gratitude.
Role of Positive Emotions in Mental Health
There is a growing body of psychological and medical
research that shows positive emotions have a profound impact on our physical
and mental wellbeing. Positive emotions like love, joy, hope, contentment are
robust predictors of increased psychological well-being, especially during
upsetting times. They optimize health,
and psychological resilience. One major reason for this is that positive
emotions strengthen our immune system.
An important feature of positive emotions, psychologist Barbara
Frederickson observes, is that their effects do not end once suffering is
prevented or alleviated. Positive emotions lead to an increment in personal
resources that help us both in the present and the future to cope more
effectively with challenges and adversities and in that way help promote
physical and mental wellbeing.
Important among the dispositions, or virtues, that
promote positive emotions is gratitude. Frequent expressions of gratitude evoke
in us a sense of wellbeing and strengthen us to face adversity. We feel good
when someone thanks us. So too, we can make others feel good by genuinely
thanking them and expressing our appreciation.
However, gratitude is much more than
saying “thank you” to someone who has given us a gift or helped us in some way,
or to God for a blessing received. Gratitude, as defined in research
literature, is —“the capacity to feel the
emotion of thankfulness on a regular and consistent basis, across situations
and over time.” In other words, gratitude is a disposition that accompanies
us through good times and bad, when things go well and things go wrong, in
illness and health, in success and failure.
It does not take great effort to be grateful. There is so
much goodness and blessings even in the midst of all the disruptions and
distress that is part of our lives.
For us to grow in gratitude and
thankfulness we need to cultivate what the great scientist Albert Einstein
called a sense of “awe and wonder” -
our ability to be amazed by the daily miracles that happen around us. He wrote:
those “who can no longer wonder and stand rapt
in awe is as good as dead.” Further, “There are only two ways to live your
life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” When we see these daily miracles around us, we
cannot but be grateful and feel good about ourselves and the world around us.
Daughters of St. Paul Sister Caroline Duia
has a lovely song entitled “Miracles.”
(available on YouTube). Its lyrics speak of these daily miracles “There are miracles every moment… each day is
a miracle with its countless blessings. …Yes, it’s a miracle to be alive and be
living… to see the golden sunrise, to hear the birds sing, to feel the gentle
breeze, to see the wind dancing in the trees… Isn’t it a miracle that just when
you feel lonely and blue, then an unannounced friend comes to sooth and
comfort…?”
Antidote to Mental Illness
Gratitude is an important antidote to mental illness. We
cannot, for example, be grateful and depressed at the same time. The moment we
begin to be grateful, the depression lifts, even if it is only momentary. The
more frequently we express gratitude, the more our depression will be lifted.
The more grateful we are, the more we enhance our wellbeing.
There are certain dynamics that mediate the relationship
between gratitude and wellbeing. Clayton McClintock, professor of psychology at
Columbia University, observes that gratitude “is fundamentally a way of seeing
that alters our gaze.” It begins with “a simple recognition that nothing at all
can be taken for granted. And if that is so, this life that we have in all its
ephemeral particularities, is a precious gift. To recognize this gift is the
beginning of gratitude” (Spirituality
in Clinical Practice, 2014, 2(1), 21-22).
McClintock’s observation was confirmed by a cancer patient during a patient-physicians conference which about a hundred persons attended. Based on his experience, he observed: “When you don’t consider life as a gift, then you become sick.” He had been too busy with work to notice and appreciate his life and the gifts that life brought him.
According to McClintock “Gratitude immediately shifts
one’s attitude away from the negative, away from the seemingly ordinary, and
into the new, the good and the beautiful.”
Gratitude is an attitude and disposition that we can
consciously cultivate. Gratitude, McClintock observes, “depends on inner
intention and not on outer circumstance.” Hence we can be grateful in all
circumstances good and bad by shifting our intention and changing our
disposition.
Ways to Cultivate Gratitude
One easy means to cultivate gratitude is
the daily practice of the Examen of
Consciousness that is at the heart of Ignatian spirituality. We take a few
minutes at the end of the day to sit quietly and allow memories of the good
things – the little miracles - that have happened during the day to come into
awareness and we let our heart fill with thankfulness. Gradually we will become
more and more sensitive to these gifts and develop a grateful disposition and
enhance our mental and emotional wellbeing.
A second means, one that McClintock
recommends, is the practice in Buddhist tradition, of calling to mind, at least
occasionally, a benefactor, a person whom we actually know, and wanting for the
person deep happiness and wellbeing.
A third practice, which many psychologists suggest, is keeping a daily Gratitude Journal. We look back over the day that is ending and pick up at least three blessings, even little ones, we have experienced, list them and describe in writing our feelings about them and whatever else these evoke in us. Gradually, with regular practice, we will cultivate an enduring disposition of gratitude.
We could stay quietly for a while with
whatever this podcast is evoking in us today….
For Introspection and Prayer
We often find Jesus giving thanks to his Father. For
example, in the Gospel of Mathew he says: “ I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding
and revealed them to babes” ( 11, 25)…. In the Gospel of John, he acclaims at
the tomb of Lazarus: “Father, I thank you for you have hard me.” (11, 41)…
In
his first letter to the Thessalonians Saint Paul exhorts us: “Give thanks in all circumstances” (5, 1-8).
Writing to the Philippians he says: “I thank my God every time I remember you…”
(1, 3).
Pictures: courtesy google Images
JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB, PHD
