Gratitude: Transitory or Trait?
The obligatory thank you for a gift or someone’s help. The sense of indebtedness to someone for what they did, said, or provided. Basic gratitude is more an occasional action spurred by someone else’s actions or thoughtfulness, or what we see as chance or luck. These forms of gratitude can certainly be genuine and heartfelt, but they are also situational and episodic. This kind of gratitude is more a response to life than a way of moving through and living life.
Trait gratitude is the real gold mine. It is a sustained emotional state, a way of being that goes well beyond doing. It is a practice, a perception-builder, an active and healthy habit that impacts all realms of wellbeing. Being grateful for something good is transitory. It comes and goes. Trait gratitude is born of reflection, paying attention, creating new brain pathways. Trait gratitude becomes part of who we are and how we perceive and receive our lives, other living beings, and the world around us.
Trait gratitude is not dependent on only positive outcomes and successes. It is enduring, and a true strength in times of struggle-providing genuine hope and nourishing energy. This allows us to keep moving through the grief, loss, frustration, fear or whatever is causing us physical, spiritual, and emotional challenges. It doesn’t deny pain or gloss over what has been disappointing, it carries us through, even revealing gifts along the way. A listening ear from a friend. A patient doctor who answered questions and calmed fears. The rich beauty of the natural world bringing peace when our inner world was in turmoil.
Trait gratitude is a term fairly new to me, but I am fully appreciating that we are hearing about it beyond the research now. I will be using the phrase “trait gratitude” more in my conversations and writings. I have long used the term “living gratefully” to describe my own practice. Living gratefully goes further than calling myself a grateful person. Living gratefully means waking up each day with the intention to pay attention. I get out of bed and put my feet on the floor and walk. I turn on a faucet and get clean water to drink and to make coffee. I step outside and feel the humid air on my skin. I look into our puppy Gracie’s eyes and feel a deep sense of love and connection.
I lose attention to these daily gifts regularly, but decades of living gratefully have helped me return to a state of gratefulness more quickly and not get pulled into downward spirals that end up draining me and closing me off from others and the world around me.
Trait gratitude is ordinary, but also extraordinary. Like the stars are an ordinary fixture in the sky for inhabitants of earth, but also entirely extraordinary in their vastness and ability to shine from a distance we humans can barely fathom.
It’s more than basic, but it is also everyday. By that, I mean something to make active every day. My practices include journaling, sharing gratitudes with others and reading theirs, looking for awe and finding it readily, simply trying to pay full attention in any given moment, pausing, taking a breath, reflecting, writing some more, sharing some more.
The words of Brother David Steindl-Rast have provided ongoing inspiration for me and so many others who strive to live gratefully. I was especially moved by his words: “In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” I came across these words as I was coming out of a cancer diagnosis, surgeries, and treatment. They have been a guiding light ever since. (My diagnosis was in 2008.)
Our culture and all the marketing pelted at us promises happiness, easily and quickly, especially if you buy what someone else is selling. Too many chase the elusive happiness, or tire of it quickly when it arrives, wanting even more. Brother David, and a growing library of research from many scientists across several fields of study, suggest we slow down, hone our gratitude muscles with practices that work for us, pause, breathe more deeply, see what arrives. The happiness and good energy follow. We become less isolated and contribute more to humanity in helpful ways.
Brother David is a Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer. His promotion of interfaith dialogue and the interaction between spirituality and science has made a profound difference globally in recent decades. He founded the organization now known as Grateful Living. I have especially been impacted by the “Word for the Day” , poetry offerings, and as a facilitator/host of grateful gatherings. It is a wonderful organization and website. I encourage you to explore and engage with it and the people you will find there.
This Sunday is Brother David’s 100th birthday. An amazing life and lasting legacy to celebrate! Because of your wisdom, patience, and words, today I understand trait gratitude and I live gratefully. Thank you Brother David! Thank you! And Happy Birthday!
