Mindfulness and Gratitude
In the final episode of The Office, Andy Bernard (one of the main characters) laments that he wishes there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them. For a comedic television show, this line of dialogue was particularly melancholic, while also being painfully true. We, as a society, have a problem with enjoying what we have in the moment and appreciating people before they are gone. We have a “the grass is always greener on the other side” mentality. We develop nostalgia for a time we weren’t even fully present in in the first place. We miss people; we let years go by before giving them a call. We watch a TV show once we know it’s ending that we hadn’t watched for many seasons. So what should we do to remedy this problem? The answer is simple: we should practice mindfulness and gratitude.
Mindfulness is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, but what does it actually mean? Mindfulness, by definition, is the act of being present in a moment. While it might sound simple, it can be difficult to achieve in our increasingly complex world. However, there are some tips to make it easier:
1. The best way to increase one’s mindfulness is through awareness. Be aware of your breath, be aware of how your body feels in that moment, and truly observe your thoughts.
2. Try “mindful” activities such as mindful walking and mindful eating, where you focus on that one activity. For example, if you are eating, engage your senses by smelling the food, fully tasting every bite, and feeling the textures, or if you are walking, pay close attention to the physical sensation of your feet touching the ground and the movement of your body, along with noticing the sights and sounds around you.
3. Do not fall victim to nostalgia. One of my favourite movies, Midnight in Paris, is dedicated entirely to the topic of nostalgia. The film’s protagonist, Gil, is thrilled when he finds a way to travel back to Paris in the 1920s (which has always been his dream). However, he has a realization when he gets there that nostalgia is inevitable because the people in his favourite time and place long for another era, the Belle Époque (late 1800s, early 1900s), so he travels to that time, and then the people during the Belle Époque say they wish they lived in the Baroque period (1600s to 1700s). He concludes that nostalgia is an “escape” people use to deal with the fact that they find the present to be unsatisfying, but this will not help because life, no matter the time or place, is unsatisfying. This is why it is important that we do not rely on nostalgia to get us through tough times. We should be mindful of our present, no matter how painful it is.
Gratitude is defined as the act of appreciating the goodness in one’s life. Although it also sounds easy, some struggle to engage in this positive emotion. Here are some tips to increase your gratitude levels:
1. Write down what you’re thankful for. One of the biggest ways to increase one’s gratitude is by physically writing down and seeing a list of all the good in your life. It also helps if it is more specific. For example, rather than just saying you are thankful for a person, say what it is about them that makes you thankful for them or an activity you do with them that makes you happy. There are gratitude journals one can buy, or even simply a piece of paper will do.
2. Reframe your mind. I know, I know, this seems impossible. But there are some helpful mind hacks to unlock gratitude. Many people think they can only be grateful for big things, but that is not true. One should be grateful for the little things in life, because who knows, one day they might look back and realize that they were actually the big things. To have one’s health, a roof over your head, three hearty meals a day, these are all things one should be grateful for. Another reframing technique is to start “subtracting” things or people from your life and realizing how much worse off you would be without it/ them.