Going Up? How Gratitude Lifts our Souls
Understanding the Practice of Thanksgiving
If there ever is a time for feeling moody, now is the time! As the world swirls with wars, suspicions and divisions, no one is immune from those awful feelings of being low and living low.
Isn’t it interesting that in such turbulent times, that the talk of gratitude has dominated the science we read and the articles we swipe on line? The bottom line is simple this: being grateful has a profound on our well being. We’ve all heard it by now—well, most of us.
Let’s face it—mood matters! How we feel impacts our day. Grumpy is not just an adjective. Being grumpy, morose, riddled with anxiety and pre-occupied and detached is no way to live. Living sullen, sulky and snappish is just no way to really live. These are all symptoms of a deep dis-ease going on in our lives.
The science tells us that gratitude is the express elevator to help us move up in our sense of well-being. And being thankful doesn’t have to be limited to one, stressful day of the year. We can push the express buttom in our daily choices—beginning right now to move up in how we feel and how we navigate the events of the day, season and year ahead of us.
Take a look at the “Mood Elevator” develped by social researcher, Dr. Larry Senn. Dr. Larry Senn is often called the “father of corporate culture,” due in large part to his 1970 doctoral dissertation. In 1978, he founded Senn Delaney, the culture shaping unit of Heidrick & Struggles, and has led culture-shaping engagements for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, members of two U.S. president’s cabinets, and major universities. Senn shares his insight as a keynote speaker and through his writings. His newest book is The Mood Elevator (August 2017).
Senn’s research shows how the bottom floor of our feelings and attitudes are impacted by the simple choice to be grateful—that gratitude actually promotes well-being, wholeness and an outlook on life.
Of course, no one other than Jesus, told us the same thing in the incredible and timely story about the ten lepers ( See Luke 17:11-19). One day, while Jesus was travelling, he encountered a band of lepers. These ten individuals all formed a tribe of outcasts. Their tribe is a well known tribe of people today. People who are irritated, insecure—well, every feeling expressed in the diagram of the Mood Elevator. We all know that when something is wrong, it’s a feeling of gravity pulling us down and weighing on our hearts. We feel heavy. We feel low. We feel—well, we feel ungrateful. It makes sense, right? After all, so, so much modern day leprosy is going around and to top it off moody leporacy in the 21st century is systemic. I call it “mood leprocy.” It affects us all.
Yet, in Jesus’ story, Jesus makes the audacious choice to heal all ten of the lepers. It was a remarable act of love and compassion. But, what happens next is compelling.
One of the lepers, makes the choice to push the “Gratitude Button.” Only one person distingquishes themselves by reaching inside of their own self to choose to be grateful. That one person turns around and face plants right in front of Jesus. This act of humility is recognized and called out by Jesus.
The solitary leper is not only healed of his disease. He is healed of his dis-ease.
A ‘dis-ease’ is something going in in your life that is pulling you down. It is this dis-ease that marks Jesus to say something else to him and to us, today.
Jesus says, his “faith” has made him whole.
By faith, Jesus was not saying that this person had a kind of faith that many kinds of Christians describe as a born-again status—a confession of sin, a repentance leading to baptism. No, Jesus said that the lepers act of gratitude “restored” (one translations of this passage says). It’s this kind of faith that Jesus is describing—the faith to make a deliberate choice to be grateful.
Now, to put it simply, choosing to be grateful is, indeed an act of faith! Why? because when life is hard and hard to take, this act of expressing gratitude defies the current of our hard times. Gratitude goes against the flow. Gratitude resists the culture of taking life for granted. It helps us assuage the cynical feelings that we’re marroned on an island called ‘hopelessness.’
Gratitude can restore was has been hijacked and taken from us. Being thankful is not about turkeys and yams. It is the choice to face-plant ourselves in our hearts and perhaps even with our bodies to choose to be grateful.
To say, “Thank you” is the humble recognition that life is not just about me. It is the acknowledgement that there is a larger story we can colloborate with—the story of being well—the story of being fully alive. Saying “thank you” to the story writer of our lives is simply one way we can begin right now and right here.
In the dark and early days of COVID, to find some equlibrium, I remember Gwen and I lying in our bed at night talking about what might happen to our sons and their wives, our grandchildren and ourselves. To help, we made a playlist of our favorite tunes and played it each night for several months. The music helped us and soothed us. But we also, did something else. In the dark days of of political turmoil, racial upheaval and a global pandemic, we pushed the express button of gratitude every night and you know what, it just helped. Something was “restored” in us that all those layers of dark times took from us. Each of us told each other, a few tangible things that we just wanted to remind ourselve about that day. It helped us then and it helps us now.
We practice pushing the gratitude button now every day. When we get a call about a friends “terminal diagnosis,” loss of job or family challenges, we can push the button. We can take a moment to literally say some specific things for which we are grateful. We can face-plant or we can kneel in our hearts. It’s not the posture, I suppose.
It’s the act.
It’s the choice.
It’s the courage to push the button and rise up even when you are laying low.
This poem is for everyone. It is my full force face plant to put all of this into few words in a poem. This Thanksgiving, many songs will be sung and perhaps even some poetry read to help us find the words we can’t muster ourselves. This poem, for me,
Gratitude Button by Stephen W. Smith Even when it’s bleak, the choice is mine to make. Though all around seems so dark, I can choose to find that one thing, to be thankful for, right now--right here. My small act of gratitude may be for my next breath. It may just be for my next step in the dark. It may be for you; for them; and for everyone. This choice--this button I push, lifts me, restores me and heals my dis-ease. When there is nothing left for me to do, I will push this button and rise up as I fall down.
If you like this, then please “share” it. Look for the buttons to share in your own circles with friends and family. And leave a comment as one way to say ‘thanks’.
A timely and helpful reminder!! THANKS