Saying thank you is fairly easy, but how do we show someone more meaningful appreciation? I’m going to share one of my favorite gratitude challenges with you and cover some other important questions like, what gratitude means, and why gratitude is important.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” - Melody Beattie

Gratitude Video: How This Gratitude Challenge Came to Be

So this one time, I summoned all the courage in my little heart and made the following gratitude video for a friend. Part of it was filmed in Morocco while I was traveling, which is where I got the idea for this gratitude video, but fast forward if you’d like to see the emotional random act of kindness that will make you cry that starts at minute 2.

The Back Story of this Gratitude Video

Camping amid the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert one morning, I woke up feeling glum. I’d been traveling the world alone for the last few months, trying to make peace with myself for the love that year I felt I had lost. For what felt like forever, I’d been craving a meaningful relationship. By then, I had done all the things I could possibly do to find it: joined every dating app under the sun, went to random Meetups, took up new hobbies … all with the hope of getting united with that person I’d hoped to build a future with, the person I was promised I’d meet long ago. No one ever could ever prepare me for the disenchanting feelings of Twenty-First Century dating, but there I was — still alone and very disenchanted. Love had started to feel like the sand of the Sahara slipping through the cracks between my fingers. I struggled to keep it together as I felt it become ever more incapable of being maintained. One man after another would leave and again my hope would be shattered. Swept up in other peoples’ attachment issues made me feel like I wasn’t someone who mattered, as if I were just a grain of sand in a desert full of right swipes. It’s dehumanizing to be told by someone they don’t want you because they want also all the other potential women in Los Angeles too. To be told you’ve been forgotten by someone because you get erased from their mind the minute you aren’t in their physical presence, like an Etch-a-Sketch. Both those incidences happened by the way.

I guess I disappeared into the comfortable folds of the world hoping that discovering beautiful things out in the unknown would help me create greater meaning than what I had been focusing on.

That morning in Morocco, I sat watching the sunrise with my bum planted in the sand, the wind rushing through my hair. When I closed my eyes, I took a moment to think about the love in my life I had found, instead of obsessing over the love I had lost. That’s when my friend Daniela came to mind. While thinking of her, tears rushed down my face as I remembered how special she made me feel. In our friendship, it didn’t ever matter if I were successful, in a relationship or single, super excited or down in the dumps, she always welcomed me in her life. I felt renewed remembering that yeah, through dating I’d encountered a lot of crappy people out there on Tinder, and even though my friends don’t fully take the place of the man I felt destined to love, at least they’ve helped me feel a different kind of belonging.

I know it’s trite to say, but really life is short, shorter than we can imagine. We blink and it’s gone. With this in mind, I really wanted to share with Daniela how I felt, even though I knew it would be super awkward to express my deepest feelings. The thought of never getting to tell her how I truly felt, though, outweighed the discomfort. So, I went for it and wrote her a gratitude letter then made this gratitude video as well.

What was the most amazing part to me about this gratitude video I made, other than expressing to my friend how I felt? A year later, around Thanksgiving, I met a girl in Spain who watched this video then reached out to me. She shared that she had lost her dad recently and from the depths of her own grief my relationship with my friend reminded her that she too could be love despite the circumstances. I could really relate to her and how she felt. Back in 2011 when I had lost my dad, there were moments when I was so crushed I wondered how anyone could stand to be around me. Many years later I understand now that someone else can empathize, but they don’t really hold your pain the way you do. For me to love someone through something difficult is not that hard because I see their humanity beyond what they are going through. This girl and I ended up having coffee together, and then I was able to pay forward one of the simplest and greatest things that Daniela did for me: to invite her to Thanksgiving.

Okay okay, all that emotional storytelling to say that miracles happen when we share our hearts with others. Even the miracle of finding the love we didn’t expect to find that was there all along. If I’m being honest, the challenges of my lifetime still affect me, but it’s reviving every once in a while to intentionally do a gratitude challenge, write a gratitude letter, and meditate on the goodness that’s here.

How to Show Gratitude + Your Gratitude Challenge

Now it’s your turn! Take this simple gratitude challenge and make it your own.

Find some quiet time to get out that journal, put on some pensive music, then write a meaningful gratitude letter to someone who matters to you.

Questions to consider that’ll help you along:

Has this person done something for you that, to them, may not have been particularly memorable, but to you it stands out?

Why are you grateful for them?
Do you have a memory you could share with them about a time you did something fun together?
What makes this person special? What unique qualities do they possess that you admire?
Why do you think they are someone who matters?
What do you wish for them?

Then here’s the challenge: either meet up with, call, or make them a gratitude video and read them that letter.

Beyond saying “thanks man,” it’s hard to know how to show gratitude. Sometimes, though, sharing right from the heart and explaining with an example how someone’s choice affected your life makes a big difference.

Remember, it’s the little things that make a big difference.

One more thought on the transformational power of gratitude: for this gratitude challenge, remember that writing an appreciation letter to someone you have beef with can help you transform pain. For example, if you’re still carrying around hard feelings from an ex, write them a gratitude letter, give the letter a little hug after you’re done, then rip it up and flush it down the toilet.

Beyond letters straight from the heart, I’m sure you know how to show gratitude, don’t you?! Enlighten me with how else you share your appreciation with others in the comments below — I’m so curious!

What Gratitude Means (to Someone)

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to put into words complex ideas like gratitude, love, or success. So I had a little poke around the Internet to see if I could find quotes about what gratitude means. In case you’re a curious cat like myself, here were my favorite definitions of gratitude:

“Gratitude is the virtue of rejoicing in what is. It is expressing the feeling of joy we get from all that brings us joy. It is the opposite of regret, which is a feeling of sadness for what is, and of nostalgia, which aches for a past which is now gone. Gratitude is an effective antidote to many destructive emotions,” — André Comte-Sponville

“Gratitude is a deeper, more complex phenomenon that plays a critical role in human happiness. Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can measurably change peoples' lives.” — Robert Emmons

“Gratitude, thankfulness, or gratefulness, from the Latin word gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’, is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, towards the giver of such gifts.” — Wikipedia

“The root of joy is gratefulness...It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” ― Brother David Steindl-Rast

“For gratitude is a good thing for ourselves, in a sense in which justice, that is commonly supposed to concern other persons, is not; gratitude returns in large measure unto itself. There is not a man who, when he has benefited his neighbor, has not benefited himself, — I do not mean for the reason that he whom you have aided will desire to aid you, or that he whom you have defended will desire to protect you, or that an example of good conduct returns in a circle to benefit the doer, just as examples of bad conduct recoil upon their authors, and as men find no pity if they suffer wrongs which they themselves have demonstrated the possibility of committing; but that the reward for all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves. For they are not practiced with a view to recompense; the wages of a good deed is to have done it. I am grateful, not in order that my neighbor, provoked by the earlier act of kindness, may be more ready to benefit me, but simply in order that I may perform a most pleasant and beautiful act; I feel grateful, not because it profits me, but because it pleases me.” — Seneca

Why Gratitude is Important

Each of us knows that one day, like all things, we will perish. Our ultimate fate can be so unfathomable, however, that we dare not pass our precious days alive thinking about our end. We live every moment with passing opportunities to enrich the lives of others and they must be seized because temporary discomfort is easy to surmount, but regret stays with us. I encourage you to challenge yourself with gratitude by sharing what’s truly on your heart with someone else.

In this world, everything is fast and mechanical, which goes against our truest nature: to be connected with others. That’s why gratitude feels so rewarding because it’s one step in the right direction back to our humanity. I’m sure you want to be someone who matters. It may seem paradoxical but if you challenge yourself to make someone feel like they matter then you will find what you are seeking, namely, love. And that’s why gratitude is important.

Even Though Gratitude is Hard

“What could be said tomorrow must be said today.”

Have you ever heard of distress tolerance? In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, distress tolerance happens when we intentionally put ourselves in uncomfortable situations on purpose that stretch our boundary lines. By nature, we avoid distress because negating feelings of anxiety and fear is part of our natural survival system. Fear, though, keeps us isolated, and isolation is basically a breeding ground for depression. Taking a gratitude challenge and expressing deep feelings of gratitude with someone you love is a safe way to flex your distress tolerance muscle. When you witness in your life that you are able to surmount small challenges that feel big only to discover that you are safe, then you can look for additional ways to expand. Humans are hardwired for growth, why else would we have sailed to islands out in the oceanic abyss when land was perfectly safe? Consider this gratitude challenge – the simple act of writing a gratitude letter — your invitation to get uncomfortable on purpose and grow baby.

And yeah, expressing gratitude is hard. My heart was throbbing when I called my friend. However, maybe she wouldn’t have guessed that I felt the way I did because she’s naturally kind. Conveying my feelings in a simple gratitude letter was life changing for us both.

I get it because I’m often stuck between wanting to live for today by saying how I truly feel and delaying self-expression because I’m afraid of being (dun, dun, duhhh) vulnerable. Under that is a fear of rejection and under that is a fear of being alone and under that is this notion that if I keep myself alone by choice then I don’t have to feel the pain of someone putting me in that position. Yikes. I’m not sure if you’ve read lately, but we’re experiencing a loneliness epidemic, so I’m going to guess I’m not the only one who has this kind of belief system at play.

So even when gratitude is hard, just think, by taking one small step toward connection you’re helping the entire planet overcome an epidemic. And the antidote is gratitude.

One Simple Gratitude Challenge to Close 2019