{"id":2265,"date":"2019-10-28T07:23:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T07:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happiness-speaker.co.uk\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2019-10-28T07:23:06","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T07:23:06","slug":"for-flourishings-sake-podcast-episode-9-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/?p=2265","title":{"rendered":"For Flourishing&#8217;s Sake Podcast | Episode 9 | Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to episode nine. \u00a0Today, I\u2019m going to focus on a fundamental aspect of wellbeing: Gratitude.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/11799155\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/664388\/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nLast week, it was my youngest daughter\u2019s 20th Birthday.\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking\u2026 I couldn\u2019t possibly be old enough\u2026 Thank you, you\u2019re too kind!  But seriously, this Birthday was particularly important, because we are, as a family, so, so lucky!<\/p>\n<p>When I was pregnant with Hannah, my husband and I were told at the 20-week scan that she had a heart condition so rare, so complex and so life threatening that there was nobody alive over the age of 20 with her condition in the entire world. We were told she would have a miserable life, spent mostly in and out of hospital, and were advised to consider a termination. Instead, Hannah received life-saving cutting-edge surgery that hadn\u2019t even been dreamt of 40 years ago, when those rare surviving 20-year-olds of 1999 were born.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.libsyn.com\/secure\/show\/205347\/002_-_Sept_2000_-_Hannah_in_intensive_care_at_Birmingham_Childrens_Hospital_after_surgery.jpg\" alt=\"Hannah in hospital as a baby\" width=\"500\" height=\"558\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Hannah in intensive care after her first open heart surgery in September 2000.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>None of us can know what the future holds, but right now, today, I am hugely grateful that my daughter is 20 years old.\u00a0 She is happy, she is as healthy as she can be, and she is pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor, currently in her second year of studying medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Both my daughters were born with complex, life-threatening heart conditions &#8211; different heart conditions, just to keep us on our toes!\u00a0 Between them, they\u2019ve had three open heart surgeries and two cardiac arrests.\u00a0 Not a day goes by that I don\u2019t feel an immense sense of gratitude for their everyday lives.\u00a0 On their birthdays, in particular, or on anniversaries of traumatic days in our family\u2019s life, I feel this more poignantly than ever, but it\u2019s always there, as a reminder of what truly matters in life and how lucky we are as a family.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had strange looks from time to time when I\u2019ve told people that I\u2019m grateful for my daughters\u2019 heart conditions, but how could I not be? Their heart conditions have given them a unique perspective on life and led to them making much safer choices than many of their contemporaries when they were in their teens.\u00a0 They have an appreciation for everyday life that many of us would be lucky to have by the time we are middle aged or older. They have a sense of perspective that many of us needed decades longer to develop.\u00a0 In many ways, of course, they are typical 20-somethings, insofar as there is a \u2018typical\u2019 anything.\u00a0 They are both extraordinary and ordinary in every way that matters, and the fact that I can sit here talking about it despite every obstacle that has come our way over the years is worth celebrating, in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>I find gratitude fascinating &#8211; and I am not alone, given how much it has been researched &#8211; as it is both an emotion and a character strength.\u00a0 As an emotion, it can be very positive, but of course, there are times when gratitude can have negative or worrying connotations, if it carries with it a sense of indebtedness or a fear of loss, for example, but when practised intentionally it can be a powerful positive psychology intervention.\u00a0 As a character strength, gratitude is a bit like a muscle we can flex and strengthen, so the more we practise it, the better we get at it.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Seligman, often referred to as \u2018the Founding Father of Positive Psychology\u2019, has carried out extensive research into gratitude. He found that if you write down \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZOGAp9dw8Ac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">three good things<\/a>\u2019 every evening before going to bed for a week, you can be happier and\/or less depressed for six months.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but that sounds pretty amazing, so why not give it a try? I did a case study on this in a school I worked with &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/rws.today\/gratitude-case-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">link here<\/a> &#8211; and found that even in young children, the positive effects were almost instant and lasted beyond the intervention itself.\u00a0 Their teacher told me that writing a gratitude diary helped his students\u2019 behaviour, class cohesion and co-operation, and lifted individuals who needed a boost.<\/p>\n<p>I will speak about gratitude in more detail in future episodes, as there are plenty more activities I\u2019d like to share with you, but for today, our time is just about up.\u00a0 So I invite you to write down three good things for a week, and to do this activity with your students, too.\u00a0 Let me know what impact it has!\u00a0 And as always, until we speak again, For Flourishing\u2019s Sake, have a great week!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/pond5.com\/royalty-free-music\/item\/105269169-everyday-hero-60-second-version-corporate-motivational-you-t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Everyday Hero &#8211; 60 second version (Corporate, motivational, you tube, podcast)<\/a>\u00a0Music by\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to episode nine. \u00a0Today, I\u2019m going to focus on a fundamental aspect of wellbeing: Gratitude. Last week, it was my youngest daughter\u2019s 20th Birthday.\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking\u2026 I couldn\u2019t possibly be old enough\u2026 Thank you, you\u2019re too kind! But seriously, this Birthday was particularly important, because we are, as a family, so, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,526],"tags":[387,524,525,38,40,5,60,527,552,553,393],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-for-flourishings-sake-podcast","tag-education","tag-flourishing","tag-for-flourishings-sake","tag-grateful","tag-gratitude-2","tag-happiness-2","tag-podcast","tag-podcast-episode","tag-seligman","tag-thankful","tag-wellbeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/building.happiness-speaker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}