We would like to share with you some wisdom regarding gratitude!
From the article: How Gratitude and Ingratitude Change Us by Sr. Zelie Maria Louis, SV:
The phrase “count your blessings” may be familiar to us, but do we realize the impact it can have on shaping our lives? Studies on gratitude have abounded in the field of psychology over the last two decades, and the benefits of gratitude are abundantly clear: better sleep, stronger interpersonal relationships, and a stronger immune system. Being grateful releases stress hormones and leads to better communication, deeper empathy, and more positive emotions and thoughts. So what exactly is gratitude? The foremost researcher of gratitude defines it as “the recognition that life owes me nothing and all the good I have is a gift.” (Robert Emmons, PhD)…
Do you ever feel that it’s far too easy to remember the negative and forget the good? Well, it turns out that our brains are preconditioned to that reality…we are conditioned to over-focus on and overreact to negative experiences. Thus the negative and traumatic experiences “stick” while the lighter experiences more easily fade away as inconsequential memories. Since our brains can only focus on either positive or negative information at once, a person who focuses solely on the negative actually subconsciously rewires his brain to only process negative information. Such a pattern can find us stuck in an atmosphere of ingratitude and negativity.
To grow in gratitude, we must first notice the good in our lives, and then this good must be interiorized and savoured. When we focus on what we’re grateful for, our brains attend selectively to positive thoughts, letting anxious or negative conceptions fade away…
