October/November - 2008

Dear Friend,

October in New England is a spectacular wonder - I feel so grateful to be able to enjoy it year after year!  Sheltered from the cool breeze, I bake in the sun as I gaze out upon splashes of orange, red, yellow and brown on a multi-green palette.  The birds and the squirrels have ramped up their activity, and the movements of other wildlife neighbors have granted me some rare sightings of deer, coyote, snake and fox this month.  It is a time of thanksgiving and gratitude, and I invite you to reflect on the gifts of each day with me.

The purpose of this newsletter is to share with you simple and effective tools for personal, spiritual and professional growth.  I have used these tools in my own life, so I know their power as well as their challenges.  I have also utilized them in more than thirty years of professional work with others as a life coach, educator and psychotherapist.  I offer them to you to try, adapt, and practice as methods to nurture your own growth.

Please send this issue to any friends who might be interested.  Also, I would welcome your thoughts or comments on this newsletter.  Have a great month!

Warmly,

Natalie

Natalie@EldridgeWorks.com

P.S.  Interested in some support in clarifying your purpose or taking action on your purpose?  Contact me for a complimentary coaching call to explore whether coaching could help you reach your goals!

" Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,

but the parent of all the others."

~ Cicero

Growing Gratitude

Gratitude is a gift that keeps on giving.  To cultivate a grateful heart is to give our lives increasing grace and joy.  When we express our gratitude toward others, we are offering them gifts of acknowledgment and encouragement.  At times, gratitude comes naturally and spontaneously, bringing a greater sense of health, connectedness and joy.  At other times, gratitude may feel like a chore or take considerable effort to practice. Yet it is the daily practice, no matter what kind of day we have, that becomes the gift that keeps on giving.  It is the cultivation of the habit of gratitude that I want to reflect upon with you this month.

Definitions of “gratitude” generally include:

1. an attitude or feeling of appreciation for what we currently have
2. a warm or deep appreciation for our benefactors
3. a general disposition to express gratefulness by giving thanks 

To be grateful, we must first pay attention to the positive in our lives - not take it for granted or lose sight of it in our pursuit of something we feel we do not currently have.  We must learn to pay attention to the fullness in the glass, not the emptiness.  I am currently practicing this around my view of my retirement savings - practicing gratitude for what I have, rather than focusing my attention on what has seemingly been lost. 

Gratitude is a relational practice, and serves to bring us into positive connection with others.  Robert Emmons, author of several books on the science of gratitude, points out that, “Gratefulness is a knowing awareness that we are the recipients of goodness.”  He highlights two aspects of gratitude that he describes as acknowledgment and recognition.  First, we acknowledge that we are the recipients of goodness.  Secondly, we recognize that the source of this goodness lies outside of ourselves.  We must be willing to both acknowledge the positive in our lives, and to recognize that someone or something outside ourselves has intentionally provided us with the benefit or goodness we enjoy, often at some personal cost.  This process makes more visible the web of interconnection in which we are all embedded. 

Choosing a Gratitude Attitude

I think gratitude is best defined as an attitude or perspective on life.  Gratitude is a choice, a way we choose to see and respond to whatever comes our way. Gratitude doesn’t depend upon circumstances, genetic wiring or something that we have no control over. When things go well, gratitude enables us to savor things going well. When things go poorly, gratitude enables us to remember the good that remains, to move through the difficult parts, and to recognize that they are temporary.

We foster an attitude of gratitude when we recognize and acknowledge that our opportunities are built upon the efforts and intentions of those who have gone before us:  our parents, our teachers, activists who fought for the rights we enjoy, those who have defended our freedom and integrity.  We act from an attitude of gratitude when we give thanks to and for those we are indebted to, and also when we pass along the gifts of our benefactors to others.   

What gets in the way of gratitude?  

• A sense of entitlement can block the recognition that other people are partly responsible for the good things that happen to us.
• Becoming so focused on what we are striving for that it keeps us from noticing what we already have. 
• Increasing material comfort can lead to higher expectations of material need, greater entitlement, and more striving after material success.  It goes with the territory, and this cycle can make it more difficult to spend the time to acknowledge where things come from and the people to whom one is indebted. 

What gets in the way of gratitude for you?

Gratitude Practices

How do we teach ourselves, and our children, to be more grateful?  There are tried and true, concrete methods that have been powerful through the generations:

• The etiquette of saying thank you is an ever-present reminder of our gratitude.  Though it may have become rote, it can also be an awakening tool.
• Writing thank you notes to relatives and teachers, specifically naming our appreciation of what they have given us.
• Expressing thanks before eating a meal, with or without a religious tradition, is a powerful tool for pausing to reflect on all we are grateful for.  More specifically, being mindful of all those who have contributed to our meal - including growing, harvesting, distributing, buying and preparing the food - is a wonderful reminder of our interdependence.
• Ceremonies that are focused on showing appreciation for those whose efforts have supported and furthered a cause, organization, or group of people.

In the process of writing this newsletter, I have renewed a familiar gratitude practice.  As I sit down for the evening meal, I share with my family a few things I am grateful for that I was reminded of during the day.  Sometimes we each share our gratitude, and sometimes my voice is alone.  Either way, I experience a richness in simply remembering and acknowledging my many blessings and those who have bestowed them upon me.

In the recent research on gratitude, people have been asked to keep gratitude journals on a regular, daily basis. (see the Action on Purpose Challenge below)  The people in comparison groups were asked to chronicle their daily hassles or to reflect on ways they were better off than others.  Findings indicate that adults who keep gratitude journals “exercise more regularly, report fewer illness symptoms, feel better about their lives as a whole, and are more optimistic about the future.” Emmons, in Thanks!)  I have utilized gratitude journals with many of my clients with great results.  I find that setting aside time on a daily basis to recall moments of gratitude helps people recognize the gifts associated with mundane or ordinary events, as well as more momentous ones.  This helps us savor the good that we see and provides the potential to interweave and thread together a sustainable life theme of gratefulness.

What enhances the practice of gratitude is to be very specific about what we are grateful for and to whom we are indebted.  We can increase the power and levity of our practice by writing this down, and by giving our thanks out loud.  As we cultivate our gratitude practice, more and more of our actions and responses will spring from a grateful heart.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget

that the highest appreciation is not to utter words,

 but to live by them.”

~ John F. Kennedy

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

~ Melodie Beattie

~  Action On Purpose Challenge  ~

Keeping a Gratitude Journal

1)      Get a notebook or journal for just this purpose.

2)      Select a regular time each day for this practice.  It need only be a few minutes.  Try making this a part of your getting-ready-for-bed routine, or perhaps just before your evening meal.

3)      Write down five things that inspired gratitude in you during the past day. 

4)      Take a few moments to reflect on each item as a gift.  Be specific about who gave the gift, and what effort it took.

5)      Keep up this daily practice for at least a month, and then evaluate.

~  In the News  ~

Has the economy got you worried?  Are you rethinking your work options as you approach your 50s, 60s, or 70s?  AARP has announced its 2008 list of AARP Best Employers for Workers over 50. Now in its eighth year, the award recognizes employers whose practices and policies set high standards for recruiting and retaining mature workers.

Learn more about the AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50, including a complete list of all 50 winners:  http://www.aarp.org/money/work/best_employers/Best_Employer_Winners/

Next steps for you?  Want to get going on a plan for the kind of life you want to lead in the future? The 2Young2Retire course can help.  A certified facilitator, I offer the course by tele-conference.  If you are interested in more information about the course and updates on the time and starting date, click here.

Would you like to share your kind words about Natalie's coaching, facilitating, speaking or writings?  If so, please send them to here.  We gratefully welcome your comments.

At www.EldridgeWorks.com, my virtual professional home, you will find information about coaching and psychotherapy services, as well as more about me.  I would love to hear your comments about the website, or the Action on Purpose newsletter.  Contact me at Natalie@EldridgeWorks.com.