10 Ways to Change Your Brain (and Your Life!) With Gratitude
It’s all too easy to focus on what's missing in our lives rather than really appreciate the beauty around us. This is partially because our brains have a ‘negativity bias’. At one point, our survival depended on noticing the tiger in front of us rather than marveling at the rainbow. In modern life, that means that we have a tendency to focus on things like the 10% of the time that our partner forgets to do something rather than the 90% of the time they do it.
Luckily, we’re at a point in human evolution where we can consciously decrease our bias towards negativity. Through refocusing the mind daily, we cultivate the ability to cherish the tiny exquisite details that make life delightful. Gratitude as platitudes can feel trite, spiritual-bypassy, and just....lame? But when it clicks, it can really rock your world.
Being grateful is a skill that comes from reconditioning your brain. Even if things externally are far from where you’d like, you're in the perfect training ground to cultivate it. Again, the key to true gratitude is noticing the small details in life that make it more pleasant, not necessarily just being happy for “big wins.” Finding some gratitude amongst chaos shifts our worldview over time. Think of it like learning an instrument: It can be arduous at first, but it gets much easier until suddenly the music seems to just flow through you.
Here are some key practices that helped me retrain my brain and access an incredible flow of gratitude in my life (even when things feel far from ideal). These seemingly simple practices are part of the foundational work that lifted me out of years of depression. Now, I might notice the tiger, but I’m really diggin’ that rainbow too.
1. Get to know Gratitude
First, it’s important to intimately get in touch with the feeling of gratitude in your body. It's helpful to start by making a list of things you’re really grateful for. Aim for 50 or, if you’re game, 100 items. Maybe it's a person, a place, a convenience, a special object, or food. It can include seemingly small things and bigger things. Let the list flow, and marvel at it.
Maybe you haven't felt gratitude in a really long time. That is absolutely ok. A place to start is to think of things you like, or maybe have some appreciation for. What could you one day feel grateful for if you wanted to? Or, imagine getting something you desire and sink into that feeling. What’s it like?
Once you have a starting place, it’s time to get still and bathe in the feeling these things provoke. You can use memories, your imagination, or contemplations to keep this process going. What does it feel like in your body? Actors can cry on cue, can you become so in touch with gratitude that you can access it on cue too? And for no reason other than you’re alive and it’s a delicious emotion to experience? Gently experiment with the sensations of gratitude. Get to know it intimately. You can even set reminders on your phone to tap into gratitude throughout the day.
2. Start a Gratitude Journal
Even if it's a little cliche, this practice done daily really can be incredibly helpful (even if it feels clunky to start). There’s a reason so many people recommend it! Challenge yourself to do one month straight no matter what, especially if you find it hard to find things to be grateful for. I’m betting that at the end of the month, you’ll at least have found some value.
I have a pretty dedicated ritual with my journal. Every morning I write down 5-10 things I’m grateful for in the coming day, and in the evening 5-10 things I’m grateful to have experienced. I like to add a few bigger things, along with smaller things I might have missed in the moment. This seems to get my brain thinking about what's going right and those easily-missed, fun details of life. A huge key for me is to write down different things every day so that the practice doesn’t get stale. There are only so many times that writing “my family” will do much. The more detailed, specific, and unique the gratitude the better. Try and generate the feeling as you write. There are also several sites that offer gratitude prompts to get you going as well.
3. Write your Eulogy
I know, it sounds morbid. But this practice can help you tune into the uniqueness of your soul and your special character. Write the eulogy from the perspective of a loved one and what you hope they would say about you. What are the highlights that they would mention? What did you value? What have you overcome? Who have you impacted? In what ways did you make them laugh? This practice shifts our perspective and can bring up a lot of strong emotions which lead us closer to connecting with the true essence of gratitude: gratitude for just being here and having this life experience.
4. Small Acts of Service
Google has all sorts of sweet ‘acts of service’ stories that will make even the most cynical of us melt a little. But you don’t have to go viral or do anything grand to utilize this practice. There are plenty of small opportunities all day long where we can make life a little more wonderful for someone else without expecting anything in return. Just to bring more love and care to the planet. By doing kind things for others, we get out of our own head and allow other people to be more important than ourselves (most of the time we are concerned with our own problems, not others). Being in service like this generates feelings of love, healing, and peace for them and for you. It’s a win-win.
How I make this practical is by challenging myself, usually to do three acts of service by the end of my day. If I’m feeling down and I successfully do all three I’m almost guaranteed to feel better. Leave some candy for your mail person, write a glowing review for a business you frequent, send mom a sweet text just to say you love her, smile at everyone you see, bake cookies for a neighbor, all for no reason at all. Get creative and make it fun like it's Christmas for the world (even if you feel more like the grinch, remember, it’s a fake it till you make it practice.) There are dozens of lists out there, but you can get started here and here. Whatever you want to bring more of to your life, make it your responsibility to give out first.
5. Lester Levenson’s Love Secret
Lester Levenson was a successful entrepreneur who was sent home to die with heart complications at the age of 42. While waiting for death, he began a deep contemplative process about his life. He credits his full recovery to the method he created, which has transformed into The Sedona Method. While the practice isn’t explicitly about gratitude, it’s about cultivating love and peace, which are important components. The Work is a similar process that can be found free online, and the ho'oponopono, a traditional Hawaiian prayer about gratitude and forgiveness is also a wonderful tool.
This is a process that you should investigate more if it interests you, as I’m giving an abridged version of how I personally use it here. It can be helpful to go through the process with a coach or therapist. The idea is to write down people or events related to unpleasant memories or feelings (at first, nothing too traumatic). You ground into the feeling the situation or person evokes in you and then ask yourself, “can I change this emotion to love?” Give yourself some time to see what happens and “sink in.” Gradually, you may be surprised how you can infuse unpleasant memories with love and gratitude. I use this practice more often day to day with small things that generate negative emotions that can be replaced with love if I take a pause. Again, if you’re going to dive deep, I recommend getting support around this process(hyperlink me to book), as it can be difficult to tell what is “bypassing” certain necessary emotional responses.
6. Daily Projection
This is my favorite quick morning practice to infuse the day with gratitude. Right before I get out of bed, I visualize myself having an incredible day with gratitude infused for me. I see everything in HD detail: my family and friends are grateful I’m alive, the sun and the birds are so grateful to see me, and everyone I see feels grateful for life just by being in my presence. I’m just swimming in gratitude for every experience. I visualize myself falling asleep in bed that night, so full with my incredible day. I have found this practice profound in setting my mindset for gratitude. It’s actually also a powerful act in magnetizing these events to you through ‘vibrational resonance’, as Joe Dispenza writes about in Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.
7. Loving Kindness / Metta Meditations
There are many ways to access meditations that have the explicit purpose of generating more positivity and gratitude. I like the Waking up App and Insight Timer, but Youtube and a quick Google search will find you plenty to choose from. The ho'oponopono is a traditional Hawaiian prayer about gratitude and forgiveness that can be incorporated into meditation.
The general idea is to ground in the feeling of love/gratitude and expand into feeling it for yourself, your community, and the world. This often takes time and patience. Even if it’s very difficult to feel much in the beginning, metta meditations are a powerful way to “practice” generating these feelings for ourselves and others. Over time, this exercise can support compelling internal shifts.
8. Write A Gratitude Letter
We often don’t stop to think about all of the people who have influenced our lives, especially when we feel lost or alone. The idea here is to write a letter or email to someone who is important to you. Really dive into and explore what exactly it is about this person and what they did for you that is so meaningful. If the person is still living, I really encourage sending it (and if they’re not, you can still write them a letter because our gratitude for loved ones doesn’t end when their life does). This is a great way to brighten your day and theirs.
9. Celebrate
Gratitude, in its essence, is about celebrating life. When we are vibin’ in gratitude, it's exciting to express it outwardly rather than have it be a purely mental exercise. Celebration allows us to truly externalize our joy about what we’re grateful for. Treat yourself to a nice lunch, text a friend, scream it out loud, however you want to share your successes big and small that feels true is fair game. And make sure you celebrate others, too.
10. Tweak your Schedule
This is the fundamental practice that makes your gratitude journal, lists, and inquiry actionable. What are you consistently grateful for, and how can you make space in your life for more of it? This could mean riding your bike so you can feel the wind on your face rather than driving, scheduling more time with a family member, or prioritizing dance or another loved activity. Whatever it is for you, allow gratitude to expand and infuse your life with possibility. There are rainbows everywhere, it's time to catch them!
If you’re looking to lean into more gratitude and curb negativity, schedule a free 1-1 consultation here.
As an aside, some clients groan at the idea of gratitude practices. I know a man who facilitates druid death ceremonies. He buries clients alive alone for a night in the woods with only a snorkel mask to breath out of. And all of this is to provoke in them gratitude for life! So writing in a journal every day really isn't sounding so hard now is it! :)
