Many researchers found that being grateful is the key to happiness. According to Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, it can help in one’s physical, psychological and social health. In positive psychology, gratitude is associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people in feeling more positive emotions, relishing good experiences, improving their health, dealing with adversity, and building strong relationships. But for the longest time, I did not know what does it feel like.

Do you know how does gratitude feel like? What is gratitude for you? Have you ever gave it a thought? Today we will talk about it in this post. But before that, I would like to mention that this post is all about my experience, this is not something scientifically proven. Please keep that in mind, while reading it.

What is Gratitude?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, gratitude is simply the feeling or quality of being grateful.

According to Harvard Medical School, gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals–whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.

To simplify it for this blog post let us define it as the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation for something.

A concept in my mind v/s gratitude in my heart

Now that we have defined gratitude. Let me tell you about my journey of being grateful. It was years ago when I first learnt about gratitude. There was not much research on this topic, it was still an emerging field. But somehow gratitude found me. There were many videos and blog posts on gratitude which appeared on my YouTube recommendations and Google. I took it as a calling, and though I didn’t have much knowledge about it I started keeping a gratitude journal. I just wanted to see if it works or not. I read blog posts, watched videos on how to do it, how to keep a gratitude journal and started it.

In the morning the first thing I would do was to write three things I am grateful for. I did it for years. Did I see any change? Yes, I did, I saw how it changed my thinking pattern, how it helped me in remaining positive in adverse times. Being positive does not mean I was not aware of negative things, I noticed that I became more of an optimistic person who finds hope easily and believes that things will get better and there are still things for me to be grateful for.

The problem for me was, that I knew it as a concept, but I still did not know how it feels like in my heart. If gratitude is a feeling then how does it feel? I know how anger feels like, how frustration, sadness, happiness feel like. But gratitude, no I still had no idea about it.

People say that they feel warmth in their body, there comes an automatic smile when they feel grateful for something, but it didn’t come to me. My brain knew it as a concept, but my heart didn’t know anything about it. But this was the question which I used to ask the Universe many times, and I believed that at the right time, the answer will come to me.

Did I get the answer? I think yes.

What does it feel like?

So one day during the lockdown my parents were watching B.R Chopra’s Mahabharata, I don’t remember the episode, but there was a song, Sabse unchi prem sagai, the meaning of the song in the simplest form is that love is above everything in this world. For me, it also came as love is the source of everything and at that moment it clicked.

Can it be that gratitude is nothing but love?

At that time I remember a guided meditation which I do sometimes. This one is by Andrea Wachter, ‘Decrease Anxiety and Increase Peace’ I found it on the Insight Timer app. In this meditation, Andrea Wachter guides us to think of something or a few things which you love and brings joy to you. At that time I smile, an automatic smile comes to my face. And when all this came to my mind, I realized that gratitude is nothing but love.

When I feel grateful for something, there is love in my heart. Love, not attachment, because with attachment comes the fear. Fear, that, what if I lose it? With love comes the freedom, that at this moment I am thankful to have this. I don’t know about the future, it does not even bother me, but here it is for me at this moment.

So Finally (I think so), I knew that what gratitude feels like, it feels like love. My heart knew the experience. Do I have to make an effort to feel gratitude? Yes, some people say it comes naturally to them. But after this revelation, I still have to put effort. I close my eyes, and calm my mind, then with love I think about the moment, the thing I want to feel grateful for, and at that time I feel gratitude, love for this moment, that this moment chose me. I thank the Universe for giving me this opportunity, It comes only after closing my eyes, calming my mind and thinking about it. With time, it is becoming less effortful, but in the beginning, I had to put that extra effort.

Right now, this makes sense to me, maybe in future, I will have some other experiences, but right now it for me, ‘Gratitude is nothing but love.’

With this, I will end my post here, but please tell me, what do you feel about gratitude? How does it feel like to you? I would love to know that. I will see you with next post, till then keep celebrating life!

With Love,

Komal

If you like reading such posts, you can also give my another blog post a read in which I am talking about how journaling taught me acceptance. Give it a read.

Tangled Tourista

Tangled Tourista is an online diary, which is about travel, food and books. Here you will read about book reviews and suggestions, tested travelling tips and about new cafes and restaurants around and their reviews.