Give In To Gratitude
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a very small heart, it could hold a rather large amount of gratitude.”
- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
Just over a week ago, Ella and I got married (again!). Though technically it was a year to the day since Ella and I got legally married in London. The legal wedding was a pretty low key affair, with just our immediate family and a wonderful pink-haired registrar from Lambeth Town Hall.
But this time, we were rejoicing with all our loved ones, in a rural town close to both our hearts in Spain. Now - admittedly, we weren’t sure whether we should have another celebration. After all, weddings aren’t cheap, and there were moments where we wondered whether it would all feel worth it. Was this really a meaningful way to spend all this time, effort, and money? Had we been taken in by the self-indulgent consumerism of the wedding-industrial-complex?
After much back and forth, we decided that if we didn’t have this moment to gather together our friends and families, we would likely regret it. How right we were. On reflection, what made the day so deeply special was not that it was a celebration of ‘us’ but that it was an opportunity to share a deep gratitude with all our nearest and dearest - for the support and love that they pour into our lives.
Gratitude is truly a wondrous thing - accessible to everyone, at anytime. But is perhaps most keenly felt in the big moments (like weddings), in which people show up for you. Research shows that practicing appreciation and gratitude doesn’t merely make us feel good in the moment, but has long-lasting positive implications that ripple outwards across our lives…
From a neuroscience perspective, expressing thanks does indeed feel good because it creates reward pathways in the brain (Kini et al., 2016). But it’s when we consistently engage in gratitude practices, that we can see improvements to mental health, increases in optimism, and even boosts to sleep quality (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). Physical health benefits abound, with gratitude contributing to better cardiovascular health - by lowering blood pressure and reducing stress (Mills et al., 2015).
For me, during the weekend of wedding celebrations, I felt first-hand how gratitude strengthened the relationships with my friends and family. How a simple expression of appreciation made me feel a deep sense of belonging and acceptance with loved ones (Algoe et al., 2010). This is the beauty of gratitude. It doesn’t matter who you are, how much or how little you have, gratitude comes from within; it is self-generating, self-propagating - sowing seeds of joy and love as it goes.
So in the spirit of appreciation, I have settled into a quiet spot to note down some of my reflections on a magical few days.
1. It’s actually okay to celebrate yourself!
We can all be hesitant to celebrate ourselves or our achievements, for worry that we will appear boastful. But sometimes we just have to embrace our discomfort. When done with strength and authenticity (rather than arrogance), there’s real power in celebrating ourselves and the milestones in our lives - whatever they may be. If you want to bring people together to celebrate a work success, a long-standing friendship, or a new adventure, then you should. Life is short, and commemorating key moments is a hugely important human practice. Plus, when we celebrate ourselves, we signal to others that it’s okay to celebrate themselves too!
2. Shared experiences are meaningful
In the moments both during and after the wedding, we reflected on our deep gratitude to those who had made the effort to attend. The close friend who travelled halfway around the world with a newborn. Those with personal circumstances and health conditions who still made it. The well of gratitude runs deep, and further strengthens deep bonds of friendship. But beyond that, there is also something magical that occurs when individuals coalesce around a shared purpose. Collective Participation (Neville & Reicher, 2011) refers to the sharing of an experience that becomes more than the sum of its parts, and brings waves of joy long after the event itself.
3. Don’t sweat the small stuff!
We all know perfection is a myth, but my goodness isn’t it easy to get swept up in wanting everything to be perfect! As likely happens with all events - big and small - stuff can (and often does) go wrong. We had a moment right before the wedding in which we thought it simply was not going to be ready in time. It was hard not to panic - but in order to pull it off, some compromises were necessary. Certain exacting visions had to be abandoned. In the end, none of our attendees noticed; none of our compromises impacted anyone’s day. On reflection, it is within the chaos and the messiness of life that true appreciation emerges.
4. Tell people you love them - often!
One of the unique characteristics of gratitude, is that it can be equally beneficial to giver and receiver alike. Unfortunately, too often we feel afraid to tell the important people in our lives that we love them or care for them. Perhaps we worry we will be rejected, that we will appear silly or weak. Yet as William Arthur Ward notes: “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and never giving it”. In the euphoria of the day, we told so many people how much we love them. Why hadn’t we done this before? Don’t wait for the context of a wedding or big event to tell your friends how much they mean to you. Practice the gratitude in the quiet moments as well as the loud ones.
References
Algoe, S. B., Gable, S. L., & Maisel, N. C. (2010). It's the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal relationships, 17(2), 217-233.
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(2), 377-389.
Kini, P., Wong, J., McInnis, S., Gabana, N., & Brown, J. W. (2016). The effects of gratitude expression on neural activity. NeuroImage, 128, 1-10.
Mills, P. J., Redwine, L., Wilson, K., Pung, M. A., Chinh, K., Greenberg, B. H., Lunde, O., Maisel, A., Raisinghani, A., Wood, A., & Chopra, D. (2015). The role of gratitude in spiritual well-being in asymptomatic heart failure patients. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 2(1), 5–17.
Neville, F., & Reicher, S. (2011). The experience of collective participation: Shared identity, relatedness and emotionality. Contemporary social science, 6(3), 377-396.