Gratitude has been popular for some time now in the self-help/personal development worlds, boosted by big name self-help gurus and media stars such as Oprah. And for good reason. It's a powerful practice with demonstrated effects on health and wellbeing.
Gratitude practices are useful
While simple gratitude practices (e.g. listing out 3 things that you are grateful for every day) have value, they can become rote. Then it feels like just another to do item, another thing you 'should' fit into your morning routine.
Admittedly, sometimes we need the habit to keep us going through the rough patches. Other times, it loses its value because our heart is not in it. It feels stale, purposeless and powerless.
Appreciation as a way of being
That’s why I prefer an appreciative way of being. It is something that grows in us naturally as we cultivate presence.
You know when you are experiencing appreciation. There's a lightness, a joy, a stillness. There's a sense of appreciation of the little things. Ego is barely there. Nothing is needed or wanted. I had such a moment a few minutes ago, sitting in the window looking out at the plants in my garden enjoying a burst of sun through the grey. In that moment of brief surrender, there was an opening. Inspiration poured though.
Can you relate? When did you last have such a moment of appreciation? I wonder, what will you open to when you next have one?
A key distinction
Gratitude and appreciation are similar but different. Gratitude varies in tone from thankfulness to grace. Appreciation is more akin to awe, overlapping perhaps with grace.
Trae Ashlie-Garen of WINfinity also distinguishes appreciation from gratitude and highlights the elements of attention and time. She states that “appreciation is how we give attention. It is in the present/in the now. Gratitude, while also a way to give attention, reflects on the past.... connecting the past to the present. One is neither better or worse, they each have their place. But there is an acknowledgement that there is power in being more present to the moment as it is, without the influence of the past.”
This aspect of being in the now is key in my experience. When we are truly present, an appreciative state, we open to what might be.