Episode 260: Three Good Things
Hello, friends. Welcome back to Practically Happy. You’re listening to episode number 260: Three good things. Today’s show is releasing on Thanksgiving Day, if you live in the United States of America, and on a regular old November afternoon, if you live elsewhere in the world. I was looking forward to sharing an episode about gratitude on Thanksgiving, and that’s what today’s show is going to be about.
What is Gratitude?
We’re breaking down gratitude into its cognitive process. It’s definition as an affect, an emotion, an action, and why sometimes it’s tricky to live in gratitude, also three exercises that will help you practice and maintain and boost the feelings of gratitude that you have in your everyday life.
All of these are evidence-based activities, gratitude interventions that are defined by positive psychology, researched over the last 25 years, and have great effects. Three Good Things is one of the exercises that I’ll talk about toward the end of the episode, and because there are three gratitude exercises, I titled the episode Three Good Things. Three great, positive interventions to help you feel a little bit more grateful on a regular basis.
As I was looking back over the catalogue of episodes that I’ve recorded over the last five years, I noticed three that circle around the topic of gratitude, that I wanted to just plug here for you in case you want to listen to different ideas around this topic that I’ve shared through the years.
The most recent one was about a year ago and its episode number 216: Expectation vs. Appreciation.
And then a few years before that, Living in Gratitude is Episode 67.
And a couple years before that, in the first season, episode number 14 is called Gratitude Practices for Daily Life.
Those three episodes about gratitude are another three good things that you can dive into if you want a little bit more of a gratitude playlist this day, this week, this month.
You can listen to 216, 67, and or 14 to compliment this show.
Segment: Life Lately
I’ve had a fun week and I wanted to share a little bit about it with you in today’s segment called Life Lately.
Novios Retreat was a huge success!
This time last week I was arriving home from my first annual Novios Couples Adventure and Connection Retreat put on in partnership with my friend Kristin Hodson, her husband Jake, and my husband Dave.
This event, this retreat, had been circling around in my head for a couple years. About a year ago, Kristen and I hopped on a call, and I talked her through my vision for this event. She got on board. We were really excited about it and began planning.
We opened registration in January of this year and had sold out the retreat by the spring. Then we started in on regular group calls because we wanted to arrive in Costa Rica in November having known each other– like met each other and spent some time together online, gotten some of the awkward who am I traveling with out of the way.
We also did some intentional connection exercises over the summer through these zoom calls to prime the couples for this adventure and connection retreat.
Then last week, we all landed in Liberia, Costa Rica, met up in the lobby of the hotel, hopped onto the shuttle, and began our adventure.
For the next six days, we toured through the jungle and the beaches, some of my favorite and Kristin’s favorite places in Costa Rica.
We went hiking to the most beautiful volcanic waterfall and swam in the river beneath the falls. We went horseback riding around an organic farm where we were staying in the lodges, sat in a wood fired hot tub next to a crystal-clear mountain stream. We were able to go on a cool boat tour in the middle of a national park in Costa Rica and we saw over 20 crocodiles on the edges of the river and about a dozen and a half individual species of incredible water birds.
You know that I was just loving every single bit of that. When we got out to the beach, we were able to do zip lining and surfing. We had free time and visited local taco shops as well as this incredible mountain restaurant with I think no less than four people said the best steak they had ever eaten in their entire lives sitting around this magical candle lit table overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
It’s not saying too much to say that the experience far exceeded our expectations. Both our own expectations and we heard repeatedly from the participants themselves that the event exceeded their own expectations, that without knowing exactly what to expect, they were blown away. They felt more connected, closer to their partners, had such an adventurous, interesting time, were curious and engaged in the activities that we planned.
The pacing felt good. There was a good balance of free time and activities, great group workshops, as well as solo couple time. And we all loved it so much that Kristen and Jake and Dave and I have decided to host again in 2024! Novios second annual Adventure in Connection retreat in November of 2024.
Right now, we have an email interest list available on the website.
I’ll link it in the show notes. It’s livefreecreative. co slash novios. If you head there, you will find the information for the retreat, the dates in 2024, as well as a place for you to click and leave an email. We will send an email when the applications open in the beginning of the new year. And we hope that we’ll see some of you there.
Making Gratitude Last
I want to share about an experience that I had when I was in my early teens. I think I was around 12 or 13 the first time my family went on a humanitarian expedition.
We went to central Mexico. We flew into the León airport and then got in minivans and headed out into the dusty desert, out to an area called Guanajuato and beyond into little pueblos that were tucked among the hills where there was not electricity, there wasn’t running water.
The villagers in these Pueblos were so excited for us to help them build Lorena stoves. The company that we had signed up to go with is called CHOICE Humanitarian, and I have since done a few other expeditions with them.
Something that I really appreciate now, that I don’t know that I knew enough to appreciate then, was that they work hand in hand with the community member with whom they’re going to be creating projects to make sure the materials are available on hand. The community members are making the decisions about what their needs are and investing both personally, financially and with manpower.
We worked alongside the villagers to build these stoves and water collection systems. The stoves are built primarily out of clay like adobe and sandstone. They had a chimney a heading outside of the homes where people lived, and most of the cooking is done over these open fire stove systems. The water collection systems enabled.
The villagers to basically put gutters like big PVC pipe half pipe gutters along the edges of the homes and they emptied into these big barrels down spouts into barrels so that rather than walking the miles that it was to the nearest clean water source, they were able to collect water in their own neighborhood in their own plot of land during the rainy season and purify it to be able to use it. Rather than walking to the nearest water source.
The reason that I was thinking about this first expedition that I did to Mexico, now you know 25 years ago. This is the very first time that I had had an experience in an environment that was so unlike where I lived. I had traveled a lot, but I had traveled to other very well-developed areas with electricity and running water and, you know, hot water.
This was the first time that I had seen the lifestyle without some of the things that felt so normal to me. I had this very clear thought after spending six days among the villagers, sleeping in a sleeping bag inside one of these adobe houses and eating food that had been cooked over fire, and going in and out of homes that only had light during the day or candlelight in the evening.
I remember distinctly thinking, I will never turn on a light switch at my house again without feeling grateful for the electricity.
When I go home and I turn on the spout to the shower or to the kitchen sink or to wash my hands in the bathroom, I will be forever in awe of the gift of running water.
Experiencing the lack of something that had felt so normal to me, enabled me to see it as the gift that it was. Rather than thinking that it was just part of everyday life to have electricity and running water, I was able to step outside of that perspective and feel deeply grateful for that gift, for those conveniences that were part of my life.
You can imagine what happened when I got home after that beautiful week abroad, connecting with villagers and experiencing life in a different way. The first few days when I flipped on the light switches, I would have this beaming smile across my face and I’d sort of admire the electric lights overhead and I’d turn on the hot shower and just think, oh my gosh, it feels so good.
I can’t believe how lucky I am to not have to carry my bucket a mile down to the stream and then either bathe in cold water or haul it all the way back to my house to heat it up and then do a sponge bath. These things felt so good, and I was so overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for them.
And then on day three or four, I sort of forgot to be grateful, and then by week one, two, three, I could remember the feeling of being grateful for those things, but I had adapted back to them being part of my regular life.
Does this sound familiar to you? Have you ever had an experience where you felt deeply grateful for something or someone, and you thought, I am just going to maintain this feeling forever? And slowly, the feeling fades.
What’s up with that?
Hedonic Adaptation
That, my friends, has a term within psychology. That term is hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation refers to the tendency to return to a stable level of happiness or satisfaction despite major positive or negative events or life events or experiences. It’s the idea that our baseline, sort of where we hang out on a regular basis, is set within our lives.
We can have these changes, we can notice electricity and feel grateful for it in a moment, but when we return to our regular lives, we’re going to adapt to that again. When positive things happen in our lives, we can have a spike of positive emotion and happiness, but over time we tend to adapt to new situations.
I talk about this a lot in my book, More Than Enough, where we get this sort of jolt of satisfaction from buying or acquiring new things. We think that it’s that next thing that’s going to really do it for us. That next thing on our list is going to give us all the joy and satisfaction that we’ve always ever wanted.
And what happens is we get the thing, and it feels good for a while until it doesn’t anymore. Until we forget that it felt that good, and we just move on to the next thing. It’s this cycle of always needing more, always wanting more. And there’s pieces of that that are natural and normal, and there’s pieces of that that can be avoided through consistent gratitude exercises to help keep the adaptation at bay.
We can continually and intentionally bring to consciousness the gratitude that we feel for the things that we already have.
When we understand hedonic adaptation, it can be helpful in promoting a more sustainable form of happiness.
Rather than relying only on external circumstances or new things or events or promotions or achievements for happiness, we can cultivate internal factors like mindfulness, positive relationships, and gratitude. which can lead to more lasting and more fulfilling happiness.
Why do we adapt?
Hedonic adaptation happens evolutionarily as an important mechanism for our brain’s capacity. Normalization of experience allows something that used to be novel to be normal, and it allows our brains to diminish it’s need to pay attention to everything that happens.
It allows our brains to focus on the novel and the new and the unexpected while putting everything that isn’t novel, new, or unexpected into the category of what is.
That way our brain can be attentive to changes or discrepancies rather than the constants. When something becomes a constant part of our lives, our attention naturally will shift to other things, new things, changing things.
And so, with gratitude, we don’t necessarily stop feeling grateful, rather our perception of the exceptional nature of the thing that we were grateful for starts to normalize.
Therefore, continually reminding ourselves of the positive aspects of our lives through gratitude activities and practices helps maintain our awareness and appreciation for them.
Gratitude boosts and amplifies positive emotion.
So why gratitude? Gratitude has this amazing ability to boost positive emotions in a few different ways. First, it shifts our focus away from what might be lacking or negative. When we intentionally acknowledge and appreciate the positive things or good things in our lives, it helps shift our whole mindset toward the positive.
That fosters feelings of contentment, happiness, and satisfaction. In addition to this shift, practicing gratitude activates areas of the brain associated with dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps us feel good feelings. And as we practice moving towards, acknowledging, and appreciating the positive, our brains become rewired to be more inclined towards positivity.
The neural pathways that we build will start to see all the glasses as half full rather than half empty, making it even easier for us to enjoy little and big things.
When I was talking about hedonic adaptation, I mentioned this idea of a set point where you kind of exist in a zone of satisfaction and constant, and you may have a positive experience that brings you above that, and then you’ll naturally shift down to your set point again.
Gratitude turns your positive set point up.
Research has shown that that set point can change, it can trend upward where your positive mindset can be up leveled by consistently practicing gratitude. That means that even though you have this natural hedonic adaptation where good things, you know, start to fade into normal things after a while, your whole sense of life satisfaction will increase over time with consistent practicing of gratitude.
I want to turn to a little bit of research to talk about gratitude itself.
Gratitude, I think we all kind of have this general idea of what it is, but it defies easy classification in the world of psychology. It’s been thought of as an emotion, an attitude, a virtue, a habit, a personality trait, and a coping response.
The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. All the derivatives from this same Latin root have to do with kindness. Generous. Generousness. Gifts. The beauty of giving and receiving and or getting something for nothing. Gratitude is often associated with the receipt of a gift from someone or something else that feels unearned.
So, we feel grateful for things that we receive with little effort on our own part or that we see as coming in at least some ways unearned into our lives. Research shows gratitude as a pleasant state that’s linked with other positive emotions, including contentment, happiness, pride, and hope.
And there’s a personal commitment involved in developing a personal outlook of one’s life or worldview as a gift or being grateful for your own life.
This is something that requires an investment of energy. The great thing about that investment of energy, though, is that it usually feels good along the way because as you’re generating gratitude, you are, in turn, generating positive emotions in the moment of the activity that benefit you now and go on to spiral you upward over the long term.
I’m going to take a quick break to share some exciting news with you, and then we’ll move on to the three good things. Those practical applications that I mentioned that I’ll be sharing to help you continue to develop your gratitude.
Do you want to travel with me? Fill out this survey!
Okay, I am so excited about this potential opportunity, and I just want to throw it out there and see what you all think. You’re my people, and you know that I love to travel. I love group travel. I love spending time with people in connective, exploratory adventures around the world. And I have been offered an opportunity to host a trip.
I’m calling it a girl’s trip because I kind of like the idea of getting together with all of you incredible women who want to join me somewhere around the world next summer for a summertime. Maybe midlife mama’s girl’s trip. TrovaTrip is the company that hosts group travel with creators. I would be the creator in this case.
The beautiful thing about this, after hosting self-planned retreats and itineraries for the last four and a half years, the idea of being able to show up on vacation with a group of you sounds amazing. Expertly planned itinerary, all-inclusive adventure, and I get to travel alongside you. I’m so curious if you’re interested in a girl’s trip with me next summer.
The destinations could be as close to home as Yellowstone or Sequoia National Park, doing an outdoor backpacking or summer camp type adventure. We also could just go hang on the beach in Bali or Mexico and really do like a girl’s summertime beach adventure. Your input matters a lot in this case because I want to build the trip together with you.
So, if you have any interest in coming on a girl’s trip with me, a fun group travel that I’ll be hosting somewhere in the world next summer, head to the show notes and click on the link to complete a survey. It’s probably taking three minutes to finish it. You just put your name and email address and click on the places that you’d like to travel and what sounds fun and interesting to you and
Depending on the answers is how the trip itself will be shaped there is really nothing quite as connective and incredible as experiencing the world in a group of new friends, going new places, seeing new things and doing it in an intentional way.
And I would love to share that experience with you, whether you are someone who doesn’t have a lot of friends that you want to travel with. And it sounds so great to just sign up and come along on a pre-planned adventure. Or if you think this would be a fun opportunity to get together with one or two of my girlfriends and all go together and form kind of like a mini cohort within the bigger group.
That is all interesting and exciting to me. I’m curious to see what the answers are and what shows up in the survey. Click on the link to leave your responses with TrovaTrip if you’re at all interested. This would take the place of what I would normally be doing as a summer camp next summer rather than planning it all myself.
I like the idea of showing up and just having the bandwidth to do fun and exciting, intentional things with you along the way.
Click on the link for TrovaTrip, share your insights, where you’d like to go, what sounds fun to you. And then we will let you know as the trip pans out; it would be so fun to travel with you.
Click on the link and let’s see what we can build together.
Three Gratitude Practices:
- Gratitude Journal
- Gratitude Letter
- Three Good Things Exercise
Talk now about the three good things about these three specific activities. Interventions, you might call them, that can boost your gratitude and the positive emotion around the things you’re grateful for, both in the moment and over the long term.
Gratitude Journaling
The first one is called gratitude journaling. This is probably something that you already have heard of, but do you, do it?
Do you actively keep a regular gratitude journal? This is one of the most widely studied gratitude interventions, and it involves simply writing down some things that you’re grateful for, typically on a daily or weekly basis. And, when it comes to the hedonic adaptation of this intervention, research shows that not doing it every single day It has better impact.
So, if you’re writing three or four times a week, you’re going to have better results and feel better than if you force yourself to do it every single day, which is good news for those of us who try to be consistent with things like this and then feel overwhelmed with it or feel down that we didn’t.
You know that we missed a day? Missing a day or two each week is perfect. Being intentional and creating the space to write down in a gratitude journal thing that you’re grateful for and why is the best-case scenario, but you don’t have to do it every single day. Some of the researchers responsible for this gratitude journaling work are Emmons and McCullough.
Their article from 2003 showed that individuals who maintained a gratitude journal experienced greater optimism, increased life satisfaction, and improved overall well-being. Compared to those who didn’t. So, what more could you need? Pull out a notebook that you already have, or grab a beautiful journal at, you know, your local stationery shop and just leave it by your bedside table or maybe by your coffee maker in the morning.
Some place that you’ll remember to pick it up and at least a few days a week write down things you’re grateful for. You do this, you will see and feel the benefits in your life.
Gratitude Letter
The second intervention, the second good thing from today’s episode is called gratitude letter writing. This is an activity that’s very specific.
It shows that writing and delivering a letter expressing gratitude to someone who has had a positive impact on your life. increases your happiness, your connection to this person, and decreases the negative affect in your life for up to a month after the letter delivery. So, this is, again, a specific intervention.
It was initially studied by Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson from a 2005 study. You write and deliver, and in some cases, people would write it and then call, you know, you could either send it in the mail or you can go and deliver it in person. The effects are greater if you deliver it in person and read it to the person or like on a Zoom call, read it out loud to the person that you’re sharing it with.
You feel the positive emotion in the moment that you’re writing it, recalling the positive impact this person has had on in your life. And then you experience something called positivity resonance. When you deliver it, when you give it, and you’re in connection and in community with this person who has benefited your life, and you share that gratitude with them, both people are able to be elevated and feel deeply connected in that experience.
I recognize that this particular exercise might feel a little bit uncomfortable, particularly for introverted people or folks that don’t have an easy time just talking to people in their lives. Maybe you could start out choosing someone who’s really close to you.
Maybe it’s your spouse or a child or a parent, someone with whom it feels more comfortable to open a conversation about the positive impact that they’ve had on your life. And, depending on how it feels, maybe you’ll decide that you want to extend beyond and try it with someone different.
Three Good Things Exercise
The final gratitude exercise that I want to share with you today is called the three good things exercise. This is one of the most studied positive interventions in the world of positive psychology.
This intervention can be done either writing things down or saying them out loud, and we like to do this at home around the dinner table at the end of the day when we’re sitting down for dinner, I just simply go around the table and we all say three good things that happened during the day, the causes behind them, identifying not only what happened, but why or how can be especially immersive.
Recognizing and focusing on positive events encourages a deeper understanding of where happiness is coming from and then can enable us to recognize and pursue those things more intentionally in the future.
Sin and Lubomirsky in 2009 found that individuals who practiced the Three Good Things exercise reported an increase in happiness and decreased depression. depressive symptoms.
If you’re like me and you experience some level of seasonal affective disorder or some seasonal depression, this is something that’s helpful to do in the cold, dark winter or in the hot, humid summer if, you know, depending on when your seasonal depression happens.
Recognizing that even within negative times of life or sort of negative feeling circumstances, individual negative circumstances, that there can be positive moments and positive experiences. Not in a toxic positivity, erasing the bad and only focusing on the good– but in acknowledging that they can coexist.
You can be in a cold, dark winter and also really appreciate the cardinals that came to feed on your bird feeder today and the beautiful bird mug that was given to you by a friend for your birthday that you now use for your morning hot coffee, tea, or chocolate, and the cuddles that you get from your rescue cat every time you sit down in your armchair, how she curls up on your lap and falls asleep with that rhythmic purring just settling your heart.
Three good things can happen even in trials and struggles and difficulty. And focusing on those things and elevating them, intentionally and consciously calling them out can build your gratitude and increase your overall well-being.
Whether you’re sitting down to a table of turkey and mashed potatoes, or if you’re like us and are doing an atypical Thanksgiving meal this year (ours includes pad thai and a snickerdoodle pizzookie) I want you to know that gratitude makes a difference.
And that it doesn’t always happen automatically. Sometimes we need to be intentional and conscious about activities and interventions that can build gratitude like a muscle in our everyday lives. I want to challenge you today to try one of these three good things and see what a difference it makes in your life.
And beyond that, share them! with a friend or family member. In fact, you can just send them a link to this show, and they can listen to the way gratitude can benefit them as well. I hope you have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving, and I will talk to you again next time. Bye!
