Practicing Gratitude

Activity - Cultivating Gratitude

*This module is adapted from “Teaching Climate Change Affectively” with Krista Hiser and Ilana Stout, evolved from Rebecca Lexa, Kathy Stanley, and Kim Smith.

Length: 10 minutes

Instructions:

In groups of four, rotate through a sequence of sharing what you are grateful for – moving from the immediate present out to larger and larger scales:

• Introduce yourself to the group (if you don’t know each other)

• First, tell each other something you are grateful for today. Let the first person share for 30-60 seconds max, then switch and let the others express their gratitude.

• Second, extend gratitude to your community. Express gratitude for members of your family, friends, colleagues, or people who have offered you assistance in your community. Each person shares for 30-60 seconds max.

• Finally, open up your gratitude to the entire planet! This can include even more people, plus other animals, plants, and other living beings, individual ecosystems and other places and of course, Earth itself. Start close in, and work your way out, and see how far your gratitude can reach. (conversation for the remaining 5 minutes)

After completing these 3 rounds of sharing gratitude, debrief on what came up for participants in the course of the activity. Try to identify ways that a gratitude-based mindset might advance the fight for environmental and social justice. You’ll find a few ideas below, but the benefits of gratitude are in no way limited to these!

Why practice gratitude?

When we are in a state of gratitude, we often feel more inclined to give back and extend support to others. This motivates us to act for climate and social justice. As Joanna Macy explains, “Gratitude is a social emotion. It points our warmth and goodwill out toward others.”

Research also shows that people who experience high levels of gratitude tend to be happier and more satisfied with their lives. This, of course, might raise the following question: do they feel happy because they make an effort to be grateful? Or do they feel gratitude because they're already happy people?

Studies consistently indicate that the first explanation is in fact true. For example, people who begin keeping a gratitude journal to consistently write down what they're thankful for experience a significant boost in mood after adopting the practice.

A gratitude-based mindset works even when news is bad. We might encounter news of the latest wildfire or hurricane exacerbated by climate change. While there’s no way to feel good in the face of this tragic event, we can always remember the aid workers who responded to this crisis, the community members who fight to raise awareness of structural conditions disproportionately putting black and brown residents in harm’s way, the journalists who risk their safety to cover the story, and so on. We can have immense gratitude for all of those actors, even in the face of terrible news.  

Finally, gratitude is also an antidote to unsustainable first world consumption and entitlement. It serves as a counterforce to what Joanna Macy calls “Affluenza”: the "emotional distress that arises from preoccupation with possessions and appearance." Affluenza blocks gratitude. As Macy writes, "Gratitude is about delighting in and feeling satisfied with what you're already experiencing. The advertising industry aims to undermine this by convincing you that you're missing something." That you're unhappy. That the life you have isn't good enough. And of course a major factor behind the destruction of our planet is the excessive buying and wasting of disposable consumer goods in our throwaway economy. Indeed, those practices are the lifeblood of consumer economy.

 “Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.”

-  Terry Tempest Williams

“You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy. And, while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy. That’s good medicine for land and people alike.” 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass