I got the book suggestion, “Thanks! How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier” by Robert A. Emmons, from Lowi ages ago. I finally got to reading it because it’s November and also because I made it a book suggestion for a meeting I have coming up next week. Give yourself a deadline, have others involved, and you’ll get busy in a hurry.

I completed the book last Thursday and when I closed it I thought two things: This was an awesome book and I don’t even know where to begin to write about it.

I took a little time to let it percolate and these are a few things that rose to the top. To be sure, there are many more good lessons and tidbits than these.

Overall, what is woven into this entire book is that if you want to grow gratitude, increase the gratitude you already have, or find ways to begin new practices to incorporate in your life you need mindfulness. We need to have awareness of what we are doing or not doing in order to make changes.

It’s being mindful of:

•    How you view your life.

•    Your story of your life.

•    Each experience.

•    The language you use both out loud and just in your head because it influences your experience.

•    Engaging gratitude into your life. Be active about it, go out and look for it, name it when you see it and appreciate it when it comes to you from another

The other interesting element is how we view ingratitude. It’s really a morally unacceptable trait. That I found to be true but also interesting because outside of November, how often do we really traffic actively in gratitude? You’d think if we find ingratitude to be a bit abhorrent we’d be working on the other side harder, right?

But then Emmons lets off the hook a bit on that one. He spends a fair amount of time parsing why gratitude can be tough. Why we can even be resistant to it because it goes against the grain of our “I can do it myself” attitude. And while pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is admirable, we all need help sometimes and it’s OK to receive and be thankful for it.

Here’s to all of us continuing to practice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Lowi & G