A Powerful Exercise: On Gratitude

"Gratitude is the experience of counting one's blessing" writes Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramadas in their magnificent creation on journaling. It's little wonder Nigerians have been called the happiest people on earth; most grow up singing "Count your blessings, name them one by one" in church, and might do so when engaged in mindless tasks or whenever Sunday roles around. Their state of happiness is often summarised as, "A suffering but smiling people", which spells out - I think - a nature of a people who are resilient despite grave oddities. 




Repeated behaviours tends to lose their spunk. In a case where a particular behaviour is handed down from past generations, those who now perform said behaviour have a tendency to be out of touch with the essence of the behaviour. 

Take an expression like " We thank God." As it is said today (at least, by most people), it carries a kind of meaninglessness. It has become something you throw at a person who has (perhaps graciously) quipped 'how are you'.

Go ahead. Ask the first the person you come across after reading this "how are you?". Chances are s/he will respond with "fine". Ask how s/he is fine or what is making him/her fine and you are likely to hear something along the line of "we just thank God". 


What this reveals is that a majority of us are terrible at demonstrating gratitude.


It's not that throwing "we thank God" at a gracious person is a terrible thing, it's that we fail to draw out the most of such moments when we have been given an opportunity to itemize the blessings in our lives. 


To become adept at the practice of gratitude, we must turn to an exercise detailed in Maria Popoova's remarkable blog. As described in blog practicing gratitudes in this ways as proscribed by 
 renowned psychologist, Dr. Martin Seligman can even serve to remedy debilitating states of depression.

The exercise:

Every night for the next week, set aside ten minutes before you go to sleep. Write down three things that went well today and why they went well. You may use a journal or your computer to write about the events, but it is important that you have a physical record of what you wrote. The three things need not be earthshaking in importance (“My husband picked up my favourite ice cream for dessert on the way home from work today”), but they can be important (“My sister just gave birth to a healthy baby boy”). 
Next to each positive event, answer the question “Why did this happen?” For example, if you wrote that your husband picked up ice cream, write “because my husband is really thoughtful sometimes” or “because I remembered to call him from work and remind him to stop by the grocery store.” Or if you wrote, “My sister just gave birth to a healthy baby boy,” you might pick as the cause … “She did everything right during her pregnancy.” 
Writing about why the positive events in your life happened may seem awkward at first, but please stick with it for one week. It will get easier. 

Thank You for reading.



Kindly share this exercise with anyone you know who has confided in you about being down or depressed. It could help greatly. 


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Post Author: P. W. Uduk
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Photo Source: www.digg.com


Question of the day: What simple things are you grateful for? 




Update (25/09/2015):

A reader asked to know what "Count your blessings, name them one by one" sounds like. So, I reached out to Miss Fay Fay of Nutjob Diaries for an a cappella rendition of the song. Nothing fancy. Just a recording of our voices using the sound recorder on an Android phone. Miss Fay Fay's voice is charming and amongst the most beautiful I've heard. I'm grateful to her collaborating with me on this project. She works with cool FM, writes on her blog and publishes weekly podcasts (5MOYT).

To listen, 

Stream by clicking here. Or, 


Download it as an MP3 by clicking here and choosing “save as" if prompted.

2 comments:

  1. Awesome!!! Keep putting in the work yea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bala. Thanks for your words of encouragement. They keep us going.

      Delete

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