Resilience : Practical exercises: Love, Appreciation and Gratitude

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A systems view of biological health

Section 4: Practical exercises

7 : Love, Appreciation and Gratitude

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LeftQ Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realize
I’d passed it on to him.
I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.
So, if you feel a smile begin,
don’t leave it undetected.
Let’s start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected! RightQ

Spike Milligan

If you observe animals in a healthy and sufficiently abundant natural environment (or for that matter any pet or child that is not traumatised by neglect), it is possible to see that their primary engagement with the world comes from a place somewhere on the spectrum of Love-Gratitude-Appreciation.

This is the mental-emotional frame we evolved to be in most of the time. I can say that with near 100% certainty because physiological efficiency is optimised when people enter this mental-emotional state [1]. The smile to the external world also reflects back inside and generates more happiness. The internal joy then lights up and infects the world even further.

Everyone knows what that glow of appreciation is when you are in the presence of something wonderful. A clear sky, or an ancient tree, or a beautiful flower, or a baby that is just starting to crawl. Maybe none of these give you a warm glow inside, but you can remember a time or situation or place when you did feel it – and remember what it was that prompted that glow... This glow is "Appreciation". If you inspect it carefully you'll find that it also contains a subtle kind of gratitude. Not the kind of gratitude that owes something in return or that makes you feel unworthy, or regret that it might not last long – but rather a feeling that there is nothing owed – just that it is wonderful this (whatever it is) is in the world and you are able to experience it for a few moments. The more things that you can find to appreciate in your life and then spend some time with the feeling of appreciation, the more stable your nervous system will become. It's the small everyday things that make the most difference, because we can be constantly reminded of their presence throughout the day.

Appreciation is a feeling as well as a frame of mind. And as all feelings, there are somatic (internal body) sensations that can be felt that go with it. Being positively interested in the somatic sensations of appreciation ("where am I feeling that and exactly what am I feeling?") creates a very useful feedback loop which helps to regulate the body-mind.

Because Appreciation is a feeling (as well as being a particular quality of mental presence), it is possible to be curious about what this glow feels like and where this glow resides in the body, and what other parts of the body, mind and sensory it affects/infects. Placing curious (interested) attention on the experienced somatic-sensory-mental quality of Gratitude / Appreciation / Love / Beauty (and Awe) - and particularly on the somatic part of that (interoceptive sensations) - creates an important feedback loop that further draws the rest of the body into its embrace.

It is not possible to feel BOTH fear/anxiety/grief AND Gratitude / Appreciation / Love / Beauty (and Awe).

So far as your body is concerned, neither is it possible to be in danger AND feel Gratitude / Appreciation / Love / Beauty (and Awe). So these mental-emotional states are strong signals to your body that the world might be OK-enough and that you might be in-control-enough.

If you deliberately chose to make Gratitude / Appreciation / Love / Beauty (and Awe) a regular experience and also deepen it by being curoious about its presence, then this creates and strengthens neural pathways that make this qualitative state more readily available, more accessible, and it will be experienced more fequently.

This is not hard work - indeed, if it is hard work, it's not what I'm describing. Simply - whenever you are in the presence of something simple (like a sunrise/sunset, or a tree or an open sky or anything else that spontaneously generates that "glow-state" - just spend a couple of minutes being curious about what you are feeling and where the feeling is [2].

As an (important) aside, the kind of gratitude I am referring to is not obsequiousness, feeling beholden to, or in debt, or responsible for something, or any kind of gratitude that is the kind we "should" feel. Which is why it is generally important to practice an awareness of it in very simple situations with simple things. Maybe the sound of children playing stirs heartful appreciation, but it may also stir difficult memories or thoughts of demanding responsibilites (etc.) In our nuclear family culture, people tend to be complex. So - keep it simple. The scattering and reflection of Light. Flowers and trees. Sky, gentle breezes, soft rain, sunsets. Maybe stroking an animal. That kind of thing often works best for most people most of the time.

Appreciation, Love, Gratitude, Curiosity

References & Notes

1 Whenever anyone enters a genuine state of heartfelt gratitude/appreciation, Heart Rate Variability (HRV) tends to fall into a very smooth 10 second cycle, and synchronises with breath. There is some debate as to whether the breath falls into a steady rhythm and the heart then follows due to Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) (this being a simple mechanical function of blood displacement in the major venous bodies, and perhaps lymph displacement in the posterior throacic cavity, as the lungs expand) - or whether they are two distinct but overlapping rhythms. My personal experience is that HRV and RSA are not always in synch - do not have to be in synch - but rather that HRV and the breathing rate enter a harmonic relationship that may be 1:1 but may also be 2:1 or 3:2 (etc). Whatever the mechanism, the Traube-Meyer-Hering cycle - an important rhythm of synchronisation between Vagal and Sympathetic branches of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) - also joins in with HRV, as do brain waves. This state is quite profound and "infectious", being detected by the physiological-emotional neurology of other people within a few metres distance, who then tend to also fall into sympathetic resonance with it themselves (hence the poem by Spike Milligan!). For more information on HRV see research by HeartMath. Also see a description of a whole Italian village entering synchronised HRV during a traditional fire-walking ritual in Dimitris Xygalatas (2024) Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. Profile Books ISBN-13: 978-1788161039

2 I first started to apply HeartMath biofeedback some 30 years ago. I cycled through a stand of beech trees on my way to work every day - and for the two oir three minutes in the trees and immediately afterwards I deliberately became interested in how their presence affected me. I had no idea what I was doing but it felt good. Some six months after I started I found that I had lost my previous fear of public speaking and gained a lot of self-confidence. There is almost no limit to how far this practice can take you - the only tricky part is that at a certain point most begin to people "make up" the feeling rather than allowing it to genuiinely rise. At this juncture more work is required to first be self0-honest and then let go of trying enough to slip back into the child-like simplicity that comes from the body-mind instead of the cognitive ego-mind.