00;00;00;05 - 00;00;21;09
Chris Judge
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. From all of us here at PC, we want to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. And as a special bonus episode of the podcast, we wanted to feature a talk on gratitude that occurred on campus last week for faculty and staff presented by the Office of Human Resources. Three faculty members presented on what gratitude means to them and what it can mean to all of us and our well-being.

00;00;21;26 - 00;00;40;24
Chris Judge
Dominican father David Orrick, assistant professor of history, led off our presentation. Professor Matthew Erickson, Management Department chair, continued the presentation and finally, PC alum of the Class of 1984, political science professor Patricia MacLaughlin concluded these wonderful reflections on the meaning of gratitude. Take it away, Father Eric.

00;00;41;06 - 00;01;14;12
Fr. David Orique O.P.
Perhaps we are thinking about next week's celebration of Thanksgiving, the time to express thanks, appreciation and gratitude. In or taking time to express gratitude, we are likely to direct this gratitude to certain individuals. Hopefully, it's not in a self-referential exercise, although some say healthy self-acceptance is self worth or essential to healthy living. It seems to me that healthy gratitude expresses our mature sense of self that is outwardly directed toward the good and well-being of others.

00;01;14;29 - 00;01;43;21
Fr. David Orique O.P.
I believe that we are most fully human when our life is one of giving and gratitude. A gratitude that wells up from the core of a mature self-love and way of living, profoundly rooted in gratitude. To frame our vision of gratitude, I've got a few questions, perhaps to ask you questions about gratitude. Who are we grateful to? What might be be grateful for?

00;01;45;06 - 00;02;19;22
Fr. David Orique O.P.
And how might we practice gratitude as a way of life? A lot for a few thoughts and my on these three questions about who we are grateful to as a Christian. My understanding of gratitude starts with the source. God, I am grateful to God for life and love life. It is a pure gift from God and meant to be gratefully shaped and formed by love received from God and meant to be given generously, in service to others.

00;02;20;18 - 00;02;49;12
Fr. David Orique O.P.
I'm grateful to others frequently. People I never I never I will never meet. But those whose generosity and effort makes it possible that daily ness and nourishment and rest and safety that I enjoy. Who might we be? Grateful. Who? Who? What I am grateful for. Thanksgiving is clearly a time to give thanks for what we have been blessed with.

00;02;49;12 - 00;03;26;13
Fr. David Orique O.P.
Life, family. Friends, colleagues. Work. Nourishment. Gratitude for these relationships of meaning and mission. Contour are a very existence without life, without relationships and sustenance. Not just physical, but also spiritual and mental. Our lives would not be sustained and would not flourish. What are we grateful for? How might we practice gratitude as a way of life? Gratitude as a way of life.

00;03;26;26 - 00;03;56;18
Fr. David Orique O.P.
They think two things hinge. Gratitude as a way of life. Awareness and action. Awareness of those in our lives. And of their impact on us. The good and sometimes even the bad. How might we respond in light, loving and life giving ways to these people and events? Three things that I try to do. I try to read broadly and I don't mean just books.

00;03;57;02 - 00;04;22;24
Fr. David Orique O.P.
Just mean magazines. I don't mean just some kind of feed on my social media or something. Read broadly from the from life around me, what people say, what they don't say. In addition to, of course, books and other kinds of more serious kinds of more intellectual engage kind of reading. Read broadly. Think deeply. Think deeply about what I'm reading around life that surrounds me.

00;04;24;11 - 00;04;50;16
Fr. David Orique O.P.
And then question regularly, read broadly, think deeply in question regularly. I think that'll cultivate a kind of awareness in us that will allow us to move towards a gratitude and a grateful type of action that we live in, in concrete kinds of ways. Action shows in concrete ways to engage life on life's terms. Many things are out of our control.

00;04;51;02 - 00;05;16;05
Fr. David Orique O.P.
Perhaps most things are really out of our control. Similarly, so, what do we do possibly to confront and change? The reality of our world in many ways requires us to accept the world as it is, and with the rest of that, let go and be grateful. Close with a quote and a few comments and gratitude. Also, letter to the Corinthians.

00;05;16;05 - 00;05;46;26
Fr. David Orique O.P.
The first Corinthians, a letter in which he is scolding the Corinthians community about, among other things, are in gratitude. He says in first Corinthians four seven. Who confers distinction upon you? They're being really full of themselves, really self-absorbed and self-important. What do you possess that you have not received? They're thinking they're self-sufficient. But you. But if you've have received it, why are you boasting if you did not receive it?

00;05;47;26 - 00;06;13;00
Fr. David Orique O.P.
In a sense, they're forgetting to be grateful for. Everything we have is pure gift. Ultimately, it seems to me this central to living gratitude daily as a way of life. We start by recognizing all that we have as gift from God and from the generosity of God through the hands and hearts of so many around us. And grateful to you for your attention.

00;06;13;21 - 00;06;15;08
Fr. David Orique O.P.
Thank you very much.

00;06;15;08 - 00;06;37;26
Matthew Eriksen
So I'm going to talk about gratitude in the context of a self leadership class. I teach so many, lay out the logic for gratitude and why that's in the class for self leadership. So gratitude for me is the conscious appreciation of any aspect of our life. It allows us to see the blessings in our lives.

00;06;38;20 - 00;07;07;04
Matthew Eriksen
So I believe life is about meaning and purpose, and for an individual to fulfill their potential purpose requires some type of performance excellence. And performance excellence requires the ground of well-being. So in the class I have them practice a wellbeing practices, present engagement, relationships and all these different things. And one of them is gratitude. So I'm going to finish with some quotes from the students.

00;07;07;04 - 00;07;27;18
Matthew Eriksen
An interesting practice. So students complete a reading on gratitude. They practice gratitude for a week. They journal each day about what they did and what the experience of it was. And then at the end of the week, they do a self reflection on the weekly experience, and they're doing this that for gratitude, but also for all these other ones.

00;07;27;18 - 00;07;56;15
Matthew Eriksen
So they're learning this skill of self-reflection over and then they start actually start seeing the ties between the different practices, which is kind of cool. So we're biologically built to survive our attention and memory tends to be drawn to negative aspects of our life experiences over the positive because paying attention to the aspects of our lives that causes suffering or could have negative impacts on our existence is a better survival strategy and focusing on pleasurable aspects of our lives.

00;07;57;09 - 00;08;28;23
Matthew Eriksen
Important survival strategies include belonging to a group and being successful. This causes us to act in ways that we think lead to being liked in comparing ourselves to others in situations. So much of our anxiety arises from worrying about whether someone likes us as being accepted, as fitting in, as being successful. Right. So the major. So there's a lot of this this work or that our biology hasn't caught up with the present society we live in.

00;08;29;05 - 00;08;59;26
Matthew Eriksen
So the fact that the major challenge of the modern world is that we're bombarded with perceived threats to our being, being liked, fitting in and being successful. These negative experiences tend to dominate our thinking. And of course, social media is just made this way worse. Right. And this is something that's a constant presence. We're talking about class with the tech talk and like getting on it and then not even realizing what they watch 2 hours later buying stuff because it's 20%, all these kind of critics think so.

00;09;00;17 - 00;09;31;02
Matthew Eriksen
Thoughts come into our mind. I hate the way I look right now. Why am I not happy as my friends are? I need more money, time, love, etc. Because of this bias and its negative impact on our subjective experience and the outcomes of our lives, we tend to draw on our ability. We have to sorry, we have to draw on our ability to be conscious of our thoughts and feelings and used to think appreciatively about aspects of our lives and learn to savor this experience.

00;09;31;05 - 00;10;02;21
Matthew Eriksen
Right. So we know we have this negative by but we have this ability to be conscious so we can kind of watch these negative things and then start to shift our attentions by consciously appreciating the positive aspects of life. We active neural pathways, neural pathways that open the door to a deeper experience of well-being. One reads Research, study divided participants into three groups that spent ten weeks writing daily about the hassles or irritants in their lives just the events that affected them or things that they were grateful for.

00;10;03;17 - 00;10;16;19
Matthew Eriksen
Group that wrote about things they were grateful for had a more positive attitude towards their life circumstances, exercised more, reported fewer physical symptoms associated with headaches and other chronic health.

00;10;19;05 - 00;10;48;23
Matthew Eriksen
Obviously, gratitude is a spiritual practice, as we just heard Buddhist texts cultivating credit, gratitude as cultivating kindness in virtue. So a worthy person is grateful and mindful of the benefits done to him. Gratitude is also been the focus of philosophers, stoic philosopher Petrakis declared. He is a wise man who does not grieve for things which he has not but rejoices for those he has.

00;10;49;24 - 00;11;15;18
Matthew Eriksen
So when we grieve for things we don't have, we suffer. When we rejoice for the things we have, we experience contentment. When we focus on what we don't have and on the negative aspects of life, we find ourselves wallowing in envy, bitterness and self-pity. Gratitude diminishes anxiety, depressions and other signs of psychological unease in time, those tainly cultivating an appreciation, appreciation and contentment.

00;11;17;03 - 00;11;32;17
Matthew Eriksen
So then for me, it's always interesting to the students Do this for a week and they're like, What? What do they write about? Right now that's like, What? What was experience like? What was unexpected? All these kind of questions. So I'll just share three quotes from the students about what they wrote about after just doing it for a week.

00;11;33;18 - 00;11;52;29
Matthew Eriksen
The biggest thing I learned about the practice of gratitude is that it can be done anywhere. It only takes a minute whether I was in my kitchen after cooking a meal at Raymond Dining Hall during the business hours or in my car after the gym, I was able to take time away from my day and think of some things I was grateful for.

00;11;53;24 - 00;12;20;01
Matthew Eriksen
I also learned this practice of gratitude can be much more beneficial when you talk to your friends about what he or she is grateful for because you realize you are grateful for things you didn't even know you could be grateful for. The most rewarding part of this gratitude practice was that I was able to look at my life from a more positive point of view and see the happiness and blessings surrounding me in my in my day to day life.

00;12;20;26 - 00;12;51;07
Matthew Eriksen
I feel as though in our lives, with social media especially, we often compare what we have don't have to others making us somewhat ungrateful. I know I often see my friends posting something I wish I had and think that my life could be better if I had that too. However, this practice proved to me that I have so much in my life to be grateful for the support of family and friends, to the ability to smell my fall candle and everything in between.

00;12;51;25 - 00;13;17;01
Matthew Eriksen
A much happier person for this practice. I now notice the little things in my life a lot more now than I ever did. For example, I'm not just thankful to have friends, but I'm thankful for the support they provide me and the ability to make me smile and laugh. I notice that I have been a more positive and happier person from expressing gratitude and that my relationship with those in my life have strengthened.

00;13;18;22 - 00;13;45;28
Matthew Eriksen
Finally, there is always something or someone to be grateful for, whether it's something small or something momentous. We express gratitude to everything we encounter. I also notice a newly discovered inner joy that made me happy and less worried and anxious. I began to think more about what I had in my life, and I was grateful for for rather for that, rather than what could be or what I wished I had.

00;13;46;17 - 00;14;14;19
Matthew Eriksen
So for me, teaching or has really become about not talking about things, but trying to have students experience something, notice something in their lives, it's much more profound. We know it's a different impact in the neural networks. And then they're doing this is one practice of wellbeing ones, and then they start to see the patterns between them. Plus they're being self-aware for nine weeks, so they all build on school.

00;14;14;19 - 00;14;35;28
Matthew Eriksen
A grateful and the gratitude part. I just shift for them to their default ways of thinking and even Greg noticing the impact of social media. So they start to notice things and then they'll make decisions, right? Like you can tell someone to do something, but if they notice it on their own, it's much different. The students will tend to act on it, right?

00;14;35;28 - 00;14;44;13
Matthew Eriksen
So it's more of like an experiment at self understanding, which is much more profound than me or someone trying to tell them something.

00;14;44;13 - 00;15;08;09
Patricia McLaughlin
But I don't think there could be a better format for us to have a discussion around gratitude than a coffee chat. And I have to show gratitude to Heather, who is persisting with this. And making sure that this happened across some pretty hectic schedule. So thank you for that. And I'm grateful to be part of a community, both when I was a student and now that cares enough to have this conversation and allows people an opportunity to talk about gratitude.

00;15;09;00 - 00;15;37;11
Patricia McLaughlin
You know, it's one of the most powerful methods of happiness, but is probably one of the most overlooked, you know, a lot of mindfulness practice. And I think what is interesting about that is it's so simplistic. It's often overlooked, like something that simple can't have that great of an impact. But yet we look at a child and we remember that sometimes this simplicity can bring us joy and happiness, and we can learn a lot and so gratitude really in some ways is almost recognizing happiness after the fact.

00;15;37;21 - 00;16;07;28
Patricia McLaughlin
And, you know, what we try to do sometimes in awareness and mindfulness is try to be more aware, you know, as has been discussed with the happiness that's going on at the time that it happens and that small thoughts of appreciation over time can accumulate to pretty big impact on our lives. As you've heard so far, there's been a lot of studies on this and we thought it'd be interesting now to present the foundational and some of the ashram aspects of this, to also hear some of the research and do a little bit of application of gratitude.

00;16;08;09 - 00;16;51;05
Patricia McLaughlin
There have been over 50 studies of the impact of gratitude and one which you heard about in several others. But many get to the point that it almost is the social glue that helps us build and maintain relationships. And it's been demonstrated over and over again. There was a study, you know, just as you talked about in terms of students or faculty who have worked on writing letters for 13 weeks about gratitude and then finding out that long after those studies went by upwards to about six months later, they're still proving to be more positive and have a better outlook than the control group who did not write about gratitude.

00;16;51;05 - 00;17;22;19
Patricia McLaughlin
You also even see organizations in the workforce who do this across different professions and are able to look at those different professions but see the same outcome, that if they, even for ten days, write about gratitude, the lasting impact of the atmosphere in the workplace is is dramatic and so you see in hundreds and hundreds of studies that in order to get full physical health, you do need to involve the mind and being able to involve gratitude gives us that opportunity to do so.

00;17;23;10 - 00;17;50;11
Patricia McLaughlin
You know, I often look to to the work of the gratitude researcher, right. Robert Evan Emmons from the University of California at Davis. And he defines gratitude in two parts. He said it's the affirmation of goodness. People actually wake up to the goodness around them and the gifts they have as father discussed in recognition that the source of that goodness comes from others, comes from nature, or comes from a higher power, not necessarily only things that they're doing.

00;17;51;10 - 00;18;21;13
Patricia McLaughlin
And we've seen through these studies that benefits of practicing gratitude include strengthening immune system, strengthening your emotional ability to react, being able to respond versus reacting, being able to increase healthy eating habits, increasing activities. And so really being able to, you know, as was discussed, gratitude triggers the part of the brain, the neural network that you see social interactions and happiness trigger.

00;18;21;27 - 00;18;54;16
Patricia McLaughlin
It triggers that same area and allows us to improve our day to day, motivates people to improve themselves and then to pay that kindness forward, which I think is really important. We tend to look at the headwinds of life, the barriers instead, and really taking a look at the benefits. And with gratitude, it's an opportunity to reverse that thinking and it really makes us an opportunity to preserve some positive memories that we can pull upon when times may get dark.

00;18;55;16 - 00;19;17;18
Patricia McLaughlin
It's not just happiness and positivity, but it's being able to control the negative, any of the negative things we may see around us that we can't control. So you see the larger picture and build resilience in the face of adversity. And we know that has benefits not only in our workplace, not only in our coworker interactions, but in our personal lives as well.

00;19;18;21 - 00;19;40;10
Patricia McLaughlin
So we thought it'd be interesting to also try a couple of applications of of gratitude and provide a couple of prompts that you're able to not just listen to but be able to incorporate a bit. So we thought we'd start with the workplace. As I said, we're fortunate to be in a workplace that values gratitude and allows us to come together as part of our day to to focus on this.

00;19;41;03 - 00;20;09;22
Patricia McLaughlin
And again, it's these small things that can be accumulation to make quite a difference. And it's so fundamental, but we're so busy and their days can be so chaotic that it's it's hard. It's hard to remember to put these things in. So I'm going to just highlight a few, just to demonstrate how simple they can be. One may be just showing respect to colleagues by requesting input, by fully listening it.

00;20;10;17 - 00;20;28;07
Patricia McLaughlin
And I just pause a moment on the fully listening because it's something we talk about in mindfulness. As you know, we often when we sit with someone, we're listening, but we're already thinking about what we're going to say. And we're truly listening from a listeners perspective instead of the Speaker's perspective in terms of truly listening, what the Speaker's trying to say.

00;20;28;07 - 00;20;50;23
Patricia McLaughlin
And so, you know, we often in workshops talk about trying to not say anything or trying to not make any gestures while someone's talking. You know, how many times will someone start to tell us something and we'll say, Oh, the same thing happened to me. Let me tell you about it. We immediately hijacked the situation from someone else when we could have listened to their communication and gained something from that and felt gratitude.

00;20;52;06 - 00;21;14;09
Patricia McLaughlin
The pauses to pausing is again such a critical component of our day, but being able to pause to celebrate individual and team success, you know, just a moment to acknowledge it and to allow verbal and written thank you's. You know, we know with email and so much of it on email and texting, we we forget the power of a verbal thank you.

00;21;14;11 - 00;21;43;08
Patricia McLaughlin
The eye contact, you know, noticing, gestures to be able to look at someone to smile even if someone just opens a door for you just to say thank you and to be able to smile and to be able to tell people how they've made a difference by really individualizing that. And instead of it, it makes it feel more, I think, genuine and authentic and appreciated and giving positive feedback and asking how people you can help people grow in their role or what the next role might be.

00;21;43;08 - 00;22;04;12
Patricia McLaughlin
Just being curious that of judgmental, you know, I often find too in mindfulness, just replacing curiosity with judgment makes a very big difference. And also being available in a way where if someone's struggling, you know, it's sometimes again to day gets so busy that we tend to run past that. We're maybe just saying to someone, Are you okay?

00;22;04;23 - 00;22;26;26
Patricia McLaughlin
How are things going? And if they choose not to share, at least they know that someone's noticed and cared, which can make a very big difference, because when gratitude becomes a habit, it improves the overall attitude overall and it results in less stress in the workplace, better coworker relationships, obviously more collaboration and better decision making. You know, we're in that fight or flight response.

00;22;26;26 - 00;23;04;25
Patricia McLaughlin
We're going to go to low hanging fruit in terms of that, of digging deep to something which may be a more creative, innovative solution and so genuine appreciation does lead to a better positive attitude. And we really can build upon our gratitude, whether it be to a specific event, maybe being happy that we got a certain project or a coworker to work with to then being a little bit more persistent in our gratitude of being more grateful that the overall work of the team and then a collective gratitude where it really permeates against all barriers and actually goes across the entire organization.

00;23;04;25 - 00;23;23;20
Patricia McLaughlin
And that's what I think we really feel as though we have a PC and we have the opportunity to do, and I think that's what I'm grateful for. And as much as those simple things can make a difference in the workplace, it really does start with each of us. And so starting with how we can be more full and demonstrate more gratitude is really important.

00;23;23;20 - 00;23;57;25
Patricia McLaughlin
So I thought my ending with a few personal gratitude prompts may be helpful. We know that feelings follow your thoughts. We know if we have positive thoughts that leads to positive words or positive words leads to positive behavior and positive behavior leads to positive habits, which eventually brings positive outcomes. So again, to feel better changing our thought, life changing about how what we focus on and really not allowing most of our day to go towards negative situations are incorrect.

00;23;58;05 - 00;24;25;00
Patricia McLaughlin
How much mental energy gets dragged into that? And sometimes we pass over the positive or we pass over the neutral, you know, we you know, we the studies have shown that 46, 46.9% of people are not in their present moment in the course of their day. That means we miss half of every day of our lives thinking about something in the past or something in the future, and missing all those crucial moments that certainly can bring us joy.

00;24;25;00 - 00;24;57;25
Patricia McLaughlin
And so, for example, you know, starting simple three things that you're grateful for, it sounds like an overly simple question. And even being you, starting with the basics your family, your health, your life, personally, I'm very grateful that I had started my educational journey. And P.S., in addition, I learned here I had mentors. I had a wonderful mentor, Dr. James Carlson, who taught me not only coursework, but taught me how to make good life decisions, that I will forever be grateful for and giving thanks to just the small things.

00;24;57;25 - 00;25;16;11
Patricia McLaughlin
As I said, somebody opening a door, somebody helping you out with a project, not assuming that, you know, that's just part of their job. And so they'll do it, but rather just connecting on a personal level and saying thank you. The one thing that proves to be very beneficial is journaling. I know I have my students say, you mean cursive writing?

00;25;16;11 - 00;25;37;04
Patricia McLaughlin
You know, I think I have a grandmother that knows how to do that. So if technology feels more comfortable, please do what is most comfortable to you. But research has shown that that actual pen to paper and journaling can have a major impact in being able to write down just in the course of the day, positive things that happened, trying to be specific, not worrying about breath.

00;25;37;16 - 00;25;59;17
Patricia McLaughlin
You know, depth is more important than breath. If just writing something simple about what you should be grateful for, and then also maybe writing some of the things that make you happy. A favorite hobby, a favorite memory of the past. Now, this is a difficult time of year. It's wonderful with the holidays, but there's the intensity of the holidays and then the darkness of the winter months in New England.

00;26;00;11 - 00;26;32;23
Patricia McLaughlin
And so being able to build up some positivity now that you can go back to later on can be quite happy. Also writing about a personal accomplishment and just spending a moment or two talking about the challenge you went through and the resiliency you shown and get there. And maybe that's something you can read again if you face a significant challenge or maybe even spending a bit of time thinking about how is life better today than it was six months ago or a year ago, allowing yourself a little space, a little perspective to look back?

00;26;33;02 - 00;26;52;14
Patricia McLaughlin
Because when you do that every week, sometimes it feels like you're not making much ground. So spending a moment to think about what is it that you like about this time of the year? What is its redeeming qualities and what are the things that what favorite tradition may you have a childhood memory and spread some of that on social media.

00;26;52;14 - 00;27;26;27
Patricia McLaughlin
You know, social media can bring so much negativity, but a beautiful photo, a favorite book allowing a little bit of gratitude and happiness to share in that medium can actually lead to it. Live to our collective gratitude inclusion with these prompts often vowing to practice gratitude actually to you and to yourself. We all know that if you promise to do something, the likelihood you'll execute it is usually more likely, but begin to watch your language as well with it in terms of not only talking about what you do well, but what others have done that are good, that are good and that you're grateful for.

00;27;27;11 - 00;27;46;18
Patricia McLaughlin
So shifting that perspective from you to others and thinking differently, not always. You know, when someone asks, what are you grateful for? Going to the same three things, but rather trying to spread to think about what's new with a new thing. So I'm grateful for and imagine sometimes by subtraction, what would it be like if I didn't have this person?

00;27;46;18 - 00;28;11;05
Patricia McLaughlin
What would it be like? Opportunity Acres From taking things from grant for granted and to to savor surprises, they bring a whole new level of gratitude into our lives. And when writing these, sometimes, you know, it's good to only do it 1 to 3 times a week because we also don't want to get too numb to the positive things that are going on, but also allow ourselves to be reflective and to truly value them.

00;28;12;20 - 00;28;34;04
Patricia McLaughlin
So again, to try to experience gratitude in the present moment. So it leads you to remember memories in a positive way, or it allows you to reframe memories in a way that demonstrates the lessons you may have learned from them, even if they were difficult. Thank you to my Co-Presenters, to Heather, and to all of you. I'm grateful to be part of it.

00;28;34;04 - 00;28;34;21
Patricia McLaughlin
Thank you.

00;28;35;01 - 00;28;46;13
Chris Judge
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Providence College podcast. Please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so more people can discover us from all of us at PC. We hope you have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.