Gratitude - One of Life's Flavors
A google search for the term “gratitude benefits” returns over 81 million results. Many conclusive studies and helpful articles have outlined the benefits of deliberately cultivating a sense of gratitude: it helps us sleep better, see the bigger picture in life, reduces stress, fosters a connection with others....
While the practice is easily understood and very accessible, it’s like any tool or medicine: its benefits are greatest when applied with skill... and mindfulness plays a key role in this.
It can be helpful to think of our emotions like the five tastes of food, with gratitude being the fifth, the flavor “umami”. (loosely translated as "yumminess"). Humans have the ability to sense five tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and …. umami. Each of these flavors plays a role in our nutrition: sweetness alerts our body to the presence of carbohydrates, too much bitterness may warn us of a dangerous substance in our foods, and umami lets us know that protein, which is essential for our well-being, is present. We need the information in each one of the five tastes to support our nutritional health.
When we actively seek to cultivate gratitude in our daily lives, we need to add it to our emotional “cooking”. We don’t use it to replace the other emotions that we are experiencing. Rather, we need to allow and honor all of our emotions, because those emotions bring information to us about how we’re doing.
The invitation this week is to check in when you’re engaged in a formal gratitude practice, or informally as you move through your day, and to notice the attitude with which you’re invoking gratitude. If it’s being done with an attitude of expansiveness, openness and balance then it’s likely to serve you well. If there is an attitude of escaping from present moment discomfort, then try noting that experience, “I’m feeling uncomfortable right now. I’m having a hard time being with this emotion. What would happen if I allowed this emotion to be here? Can I be with it? And then can I invoke some gratitude to add to the emotions I’m feeling?”
One short-hand way to explore this is to notice if your gratitude practice has a sense of “At least…” or whether it has the sense of “And…”. The former doesn’t honor or validate existing emotions, the latter allows gratitude to round out the picture. It adds “yumminess” to the other flavors that are already present and useful.
May all beings everywhere savor the richness of all life has to offer,
Your friends at CMP
Guided Meditations
Visit the CMP website www.CommunityMindfulnessProject.org for guided meditations. You'll find them on the Guided Meditations page under the Resources tab.
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