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Breaking News: Your mother knew what she was doing when she taught you to say "thank you." Recent studies by Michael McCullough and Robert Emmons suggest that while your mother thought she was teaching you manners, she was really showing you the way to love and happiness. 
How can something so simple affect us so much? According to Robert Emmons in his book Thanks, "Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change people's lives." As it turns out, being more grateful may seem simple, but in practice it translates into a lot of intentional work.
In between stuffing turkeys and wrapping presents, you might recall that Thanksgiving is a holiday based on gratitude, and the religious holidays of Christmas and Chanukah both emphasize this theme as well. If it weren't for being so busy with the holidays themselves, we might notice this more. That's the key part of gratitude: It won't find you, you must find it. There may be exceptions to this, like when something very fortunate happens, but most of the time the amount of gratitude we feel is proportionate to how much effort we put into it. Like a musical instrument, the reward increases the more you practice. Indeed, when you know the sound of gratitude you tend to want more of it.
In the research, one group of participants was told to keep track of the things for which they were grateful. The other group was told to think only of hassles. For the grateful group, some of the "byproducts" of their work was:
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Feeling more loved and cared for by others
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A broadened scope of cognition and the enabling of flexible and creative thinking
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Better coping with stress and adversity
• A desire to be altruistic towards others with behaviors that enhanced connection
Obstacles to Gratitude
It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? I don't know of anyone who wouldn't want to experience the effects that the researchers noted in their study. So why aren't we all creatures of eternal gratitude? In my experience as a couples therapist, the overarching reason we minimize our gratitude is the fear that it will diminish our power, respect, or control. It's tempting to believe this, especially if you are hurt, but to withhold appreciation from a relationship is to poison it. In contrast, when gratitude is present, you create the kind of fertile soil needed for others to grow and give you what you need. As Ralph Waldo Emmerson noted, "There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us."
How to Live Out of Your Abundance
The gratitude study has important implications for how we live our lives and how we see the world. The good news about this is that you control many of the factors related to feeling happy and loved. Here are a few ways you can live out of a sense of abundance and gratitude:
Start a Gratitude Journal: Use it to record three things that happened to you each day for which you are grateful. This practice of mindfulness will make it necessary for you to think more about what is happening to you and will move you away from just reacting to problems.
Appreciate Others: Make it a practice every day. Tell someone what a good job they are doing, how nice they look, or how kind they are. Make sure it is something you can really believe! (For couples: When we find ourselves unsure of what to talk about before our meal is served at a restaurant, my wife and I try to give each other several appreciations.)
Teach Your Kids How to Give: Create family traditions that center around raising awareness of what you have and how you can give to others. Volunteer with them to model how it is possible to go outside of your comfort zone to give something that requires some effort.
Create a Culture of Thanks: Whenever possible, provide leadership and invite others around you to think of what they appreciate as a way to facilitate a more positive group process. At home, ask your holiday guests to share something for which they are particularly grateful before serving dinner. This window into the good hearts of others is priceless.
Write a Letter: Write someone a note to tell them how thankful you are for something they did, or how they have impacted you in some important way. Be specific about how their actions contributed to your life.
Deepen your Spiritual Practice: The practice of faith often touches on an awareness of gratitude. Find expression of your particular spirituality in community or in private. Meditate on prayers of thanksgiving, like the one found in Psalm 116.
Make it Public: Reply to this article by posting a comment that describes something for which you want to give thanks. Growing up, my church would have everyone write down a thanksgiving, collect them, and have them read aloud. The act of hearing others' unique stories can spawn an upwelling of gratitude in the listener.
We all stand to benefit from a reminder of some simple ways to practice gratitude. As Christmas nears, I am fond to remember the message of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. The movie version with George C. Scott never fails to move me as it so plainly speaks the truth about one of the most compelling reasons to be grateful and live out of our sense of abundance: Life is short, and we only make it more closed and lonely by withholding our appreciation in the world around us.
I will end with a note of thanks-thank you for letting me share this article with you! I look forward to reading your post and how you are grateful.
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