The Gratitude Diaries Read online

  It sounds counterintuitive, but I could see why it happens. If a waiter brings the bread basket and remembers who ordered the cheeseburger with extra bacon, we’re satisfied and ready to say thanks. But our expectations for a partner are huge. Bringing the bacon is just the start. We expect our spouse to be our best friend, passionate lover, weekend playmate, equal-time parent, entertaining dinner date, jogging partner, constant supporter, professional adviser, and travel companion. Oh, and did I mention soul mate? We can’t forget soul mate.

  So just at the moment when you are grateful to your partner for something that he is doing, you are hit in the gut by something else that he’s not providing. Maybe he’s still your best friend, but passionate lover has gone out the window and you’re a little . . . resentful. Or he’s a great parent, but you can’t help noticing that everyone else on your block seems to earn more money.

  Popular sex and marriage adviser Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, has provocatively asked, “Can we want what we already have? That’s the million-dollar question.” She worries that we pile contradictory demands on a spouse—we want security and comfort on the one hand and adventure and excitement on the other. We expect one person to fill all the needs that a whole village once did. In her view, we are always saying, “Give me comfort, give me edge; give me novelty, give me familiarity; give me predictability, give me surprise.”

  But the bottom line is always Give me. Marriage makes us entitled. Once we are married, we aren’t supposed to be unhappy or lonely or suffering from your basic existential crisis. And when—inevitably—we aren’t feeling on top of the world, it is clearly (clearly!) our spouse’s fault.

  When you expect everything, it’s hard to be grateful for anything. So I decided that now was the time to put aside impossible expectations and start appreciating the husband I had, rather than the imaginary cross between Brad Pitt and Bill Gates who would always remember to remove his muddy boots at the door.

  Good intentions can go out the window, so I wrote down my plan. For this entire month, I would find a reason at least twice a day to appreciate the man I married. Nothing fake or pretend, I would just put aside any complaints—as well as the clever improvements to his life that I was so good at suggesting—and admire him for who he was. Instead of letting my husband’s many positive virtues become the background wallpaper of our life, I would see what happened when I let them move to center stage.

  The next morning, I woke up at six A.M. and with one eye open saw my husband on the other side of the bedroom, getting dressed for work. He’s a doctor with a busy practice, but on another morning I might have snappishly asked why he had to leave so early or closed my eyes for a few more minutes’ sleep. Instead, I took a long look at him in his slim gray trousers, crisp white shirt, and silky blue tie.

  “You look very handsome this morning,” I said, my voice hoarse with sleep. “It’s nice to wake up to a good-looking man in my room.”

  He looked up at me in surprise, then smiled and came over and gave me a kiss. “You don’t have your contact lenses in yet. You can’t see a thing,” he joked.

  “Even blurry you’re good-looking,” I said, putting my arms around him.

  The whole exchange didn’t last more than thirty seconds, and Ron probably forgot it the moment he left. But it gave me a boost for the rest of the day. Giving appreciation can be as good as getting it.

  Every couple has its divisions of labor, and the next day, I started to thank Ron for the things he usually did without any particular mention—balancing the checkbook, repairing a leaky faucet, and getting us home safely after a late-night party.

  “Thank you for driving in the snow,” I said as we pulled into the garage.

  “I always drive,” he said, surprised.

  “And I appreciate that you do. Especially when it’s dark and we’re both tired. I realize how lucky I am that you handle that for me.”

  We didn’t talk about it further, but Ron seemed to pick up the vibe that something was changing in our relationship. The next night, he thanked me for making dinner—one of the activities that’s always on my side of the ledger. I shrugged it off (how much credit could I take for frozen ravioli?), but the comment still made me feel good. Whatever we do, it’s nice to be acknowledged.

  For the first few days, I consciously made myself stop and appreciate my husband. But as one week passed and then another, the flood of good feeling started to come naturally, and being thankful to my husband made me feel more positive in general. What was going on? I called Dr. Brent Atkinson, professor emeritus of marriage and family therapy at Northern Illinois University, and a director at the Couples Clinic and Research Institute in Geneva, Illinois. He believes there is strong neurological evidence showing that circuits in the brain can be primed to create stronger feelings of connection. He developed a new approach to couples counseling based on rewiring our automatic responses and actually changing the structure of the brain. I asked him if my gratitude practice could be affecting my neural circuits. He responded with an ardent “Yes.”

  “We’re learning that whatever the brain does a lot, it gets good at,” he said. “If through gratitude, you create a positive mood, you reinforce the brain pathways that will then generate more positive feelings. You can think of gratitude as a form of mental exercise that primes the mind for positivity.”

  Dr. Atkinson assured me that studies have shown that “compassion meditation”—where people spend extended periods of time focusing on kind and loving feelings—actually changes the volume of the brain and the circuits involved in emotional reaction. He uses a similar technique in his office, advising clients to sit for five minutes a day and dwell on good feelings or happy times they’ve had with their spouse. “Studies suggest that these simple mental practices can strengthen the neural circuits that generate feelings of connection,” he said.

  The idea that being grateful to my husband could change my brain sounded a little dubious—until I heard about a study done by Harvard neurologist Alvaro Pascual-Leone. He invited people who had never played the piano to take his instruction and then practice a tune for two hours a day for five days. Brain imaging done at the end of the sessions showed that the portion of the cortex devoted to finger movements had expanded impressively. That made sense, since other studies have also shown that whatever part of our body we use regularly gets more cortical real estate. Then he had another group of volunteers mentally focus on the piano-practice movements for an equal amount of time—but never touch the keys. Ready for this? They had nearly identical changes in their motor cortices.

  If thinking can change our brain circuits, I was happy to keep at it—and that’s apparently what I needed to do. Dr. Atkinson compared it to working out with dumbbells. Do just a couple of reps and your muscles won’t change. But continue steadily with those biceps curls and the cumulative effect is noticeable. Similarly, he found that the interventions he did with couples once a week in his office weren’t enough. Couples might have a moment of revelation (I get it! Washing the car is how you show you love me!) and a rush of good feeling, but it often faded before the next week. He began suggesting that couples work on priming those positive neural circuits at home. Not everyone was willing. “We all know we love our partners, but to spend five minutes a day focused on them seems extravagant!” he told me with a laugh.

  For those willing to give it a try, he suggested sending a daily sentence-completion e-mail to their partners with two sentences. The first sentence:

  One thing you did lately that I appreciated was . . .

  The second:

  One moment when I felt extra positive about you was . . .

  He made sure to do the exercise every morning for his own wife, Lisa, also a marriage counselor. When I asked, he didn’t mind sharing what he had written to her that very morning, in part to show that daily thanks didn’t have to be earth-shattering. Completing the fir
st sentence, he appreciated that Lisa had rushed around doing errands the previous day. “Maybe that didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but it was raining and she was busy and I could see that she took one for the team,” he said.

  Sentence-completion two expressed how extra positive he felt about Lisa the previous night when he heard her laughing uproariously with her stepdaughter. He admired her ease in navigating the relationship with his daughter, and that did make him feel all warm and fuzzy. Why hadn’t he said something at the time? Well, he got involved with dinner and then his phone rang and then . . . “It’s amazing how a simple expression of gratitude or appreciation can fall through the cracks. That’s why the daily e-mails are so important,” he said.

  I told him about the night I’d thanked my husband for driving us home and how Ron had responded the next day by thanking me for cooking.

  “Bravo!” he said. “When people share positive emotions with each other, scans show their brains sync up and show similar activity. You increase your natural capacity for love.”

  Dr. Atkinson urged me to keep going with what he described as the “relentless introduction of positivity.” Continuing my positive comments would make my husband feel good—but it would make me feel even better. Many studies show that the main benefit accrues to the person expressing the gratitude. With gratitude, it really is better to give than to receive. Dr. Atkinson said that he often ran into clients in the supermarket years after they’d finished counseling, and even if they didn’t remember anything else he told them, many announced that they still did the gratitude e-mail. Most reported that the price of the counseling was worth it just for that daily ritual.

  As we said good-bye, I thanked him for all the good advice. In my case, the value of the counseling was worth much, much more than I’d paid.

  —

  Eager to further stimulate our pursuit of positivity, I suggested to Ron that we take a weekend away that would be devoted to reconnecting and appreciating each other. He’s usually reluctant to leave his medical practice, so I was pleased when he said yes. That was already a big step. I was going to be in Los Angeles for work, so we agreed that he would fly out and meet me afterward.

  Looking for a romantic spot a reasonable drive away, I settled on Ojai, California, an artsy community that director Frank Capra used in his classic film Lost Horizon to represent Shangri-La. An earthly paradise with mystical overtones seemed like a fine spot to practice gratitude. Plus there were good restaurants.

  Even though it was mid-afternoon when we arrived at the elegant resort in Ojai, our room wasn’t ready, so we strolled around the extensive grounds and had a snack. When we were finally escorted to our room, it was small and on the first floor overlooking the road.

  “I asked for something quiet with a view,” I said.

  “This is what we have,” the clerk said.

  It was the off-season, and from what we’d seen in our long walk around the grounds (and through the parking lot), the large resort had very few guests. I hesitated. In a weekend of gratitude, I wanted to appreciate whatever came my way. But being grateful didn’t mean being a sap.

  I marched back to the front desk and politely said the room wasn’t what we expected. My husband sat down with pinched lips. He doesn’t like a fuss and is the master at making do. After another long wait, we ended up in a nicer room with a pretty view, but I worried that some of the goodwill had seeped out of the day.

  When we went to bed that night, I thought about a vacation we’d taken many years earlier, when I was very pregnant with our first child. It was to be our last getaway as a twosome before launching into the unknown world of strollers and diapers, and pushing to the edge of our budget, I picked what I hoped would be a picture-perfect French Caribbean island.

  The weather was gray the day we arrived, but we went to the beach anyway. I wore a maternity bathing suit the size of a pup tent and huddled miserably on my blanket as gorgeous women strolled across the sand, tanned and topless. Topless? But of course—it was a French island. In their skimpy bikini bottoms, they looked like sleek dolphins swimming in the ocean, while I felt like a whale. Why had we come here? As we lay in bed that night, rain poured down on the metal roof of our hotel. Oh, great. Storms on an island paradise. What else could go wrong?

  The next morning I found out. The sun shone brightly and we drove around the island, which was quite beautiful, after all. Heading to a late lunch, we saw a car speeding toward us, the very drunk driver careening fast and swerving out of control. With a steep cliff dropping off to our right, Ron pulled our little jeep over as far as he could—but suddenly there was the sickening sound of metal crushing and glass flying as the car smashed into us. Then the world seemed to stop. I looked over and saw my husband’s face contorted in pain, his leg a mealy mass of blood, cut open to reveal cartilage and bone. Blood pulsed out of a deep gash in my forehead, dripping down my face and splashing on my lap.

  “Are we going to die?” I asked as we sat there on the empty road, unable to move.

  We lived. An ambulance brought us to the local hospital, where a pretty French doctor (who probably went topless on the beach) stitched us up with the thick thread usually used for cadavers. She assured me that our baby, better protected than we had been, would be just fine. (I later liked to think it explained Zach’s resilience.) We stayed overnight in a room that had an outdoor path to the bathroom and was ringed with shelves of Catholic saints. Not my religion, but I’d had a feeling those saints were sending me a message.

  You didn’t know how to be grateful for that first day on this island? Okay, try a car crash instead. Now do you get it?

  We flew back home the next day and spent the week recovering at my in-laws’ house. I felt lucky to be alive and to have family to take care of us. And I’d learned my lesson: Appreciate the moment, because you never know when it will be smashed to bits.

  Now in our room in Ojai, I turned on the dim bedside lamp and reached for my gratitude journal. Switching rooms was fine—but I needed to make sure that negative feeling didn’t overwhelm the weekend. I wanted to let those saints know that I could appreciate what really mattered.

  So grateful . . . that Ron came out here for this weekend and that we are trying to stay connected, which is all that really matters.

  Over breakfast in town the next morning, we reminded each other about the point of the weekend. Be grateful. Appreciate each other. A waitress who overheard us talking smiled as she brought over my herbal iced tea.

  “Are you here for the vortex?” she asked.

  “I didn’t even know about one,” I said.

  “You’ll find it,” she said with a wink.

  We had once visited Sedona, Arizona, which is also said to have a vortex—a concentrated energy that gives the region an extra spiritual power. You supposedly feel it when you sit on the red rocks and meditate, or simply breathe deeply to increase calmness and a sense of well-being. Ron and I had been walking on a popular trail when a woman in shorts and high heels rushed up to us and in a thick New Jersey accent asked, “Do ya know where the vortex is? I’ve been lookin’ all over.” Ron explained that it wasn’t a place but an experience you had to let in. “So ya mean ya don’t know where it is,” she said, wrinkling her nose disdainfully and rushing off.

  Now in Ojai, we joked about looking for the vortex. Ron suggested we go on a hike and see if we could feel it or find it (and let the New Jersey lady know). Maybe simply believing in the extra power made it true. Ron is a strong hiker with a great sense of direction, so he briefly studied the map, then drove a short distance and parked at the trailhead. We took off, Ron striding ahead but setting an easy enough pace for me, following the trail as it wound high into the mountains. Every bend seemed to offer exhilarating views out to the valleys below. Ron asked a few times if I wanted to turn back, but it was too lovely to stop, and as we got higher, both of us were floating on
mountain air and a feeling of being connected to the cosmos.

  “I don’t know if it’s the vista or the vortex, but I feel very grateful to be here,” I said as we stopped at one glorious outlook to drink in the scenery—and some water, too.

  “We’re very lucky,” Ron agreed. He put an arm around me and we looked out, feeling the mystifying affinity with the universe that mountain trails can bring.

  “When we get back home and life gets busy again, we have to stop and remember how we feel right at this moment,” Ron said.

  We turned around to head down again, and as we sauntered along the trail, we decided to amuse ourselves with a variant of the “geography game” we used to play when our children were little. Each person had to say a place that started with the last letter of the word that came before. Only this time we’d do it with the things we were grateful for.

  “I’m grateful for our kids,” Ron said, starting in the obvious spot.

  “Sunsets.”

  “Sunday afternoons.”

  “Sundaes!”

  “Can we be grateful for something that doesn’t end in s?” Ron asked.

  “Sweet moments with my husband. I’m grateful for those,” I said ardently.

  With our heads in the vortex, we somehow missed the turnoff for where we had begun the trail. Half an hour later, we had landed on a suburban street, and even mountain-man Ron, who never gets lost, had to admit that all trails didn’t converge. He noticed a man a block away and dashed over to ask directions to where we had parked the car.

  “Oh, it’s pretty far and the streets are complicated,” said the man, whose name was John. “I’m out for a walk anyway. I’ll come with you.” Very slim, he had delicate features, curly silver hair, and a spritely step that made him seem like a grown-up Peter Pan.