The Healing Impact of Gratitude

One of the most important realizations that I made early on in my personal health journey and as a health care provider is that all of us have the priceless ability to generate powerful waves of healing energy on demand.  

How, you might be wondering?

The answer lies in filling ourselves with an enormous spirit of gratitude.  

I'm writing of the magnitude of gratitude that is bursting from the seams of Will Smith's character in one of the final scenes of The Pursuit of Happyness after he learns that he has earned a coveted broker position at Dean Witter - it was a pivotal turning point for him and his young son after enduring many years of struggle including being homeless.

I think most of us can relate to the almost overwhelming feeling of gratitude that the character is feeling as he struggles to contain his elation while walking within a crowd of people along a street in San Francisco.

This is the emotional state that we can generate whenever we truly want to, and though there isn't a practical way to measure or even identify all of the healing neurotransmitters and hormones that are released into our bloodstream to bathe our cells while we are in such a space, for me, there is no denying the many benefits of regularly gifting ourselves this state of being.

For those who haven't experienced purposefully generating this level of gratitude, this is my general approach:

Sit or lie in a comfortable position with your eyes closed.

Begin taking slow, deep breaths in and out.

Focus on something about your life right now that you are immensely grateful for.  If you can't think of anything specific, put your focus on a person or a cause that you deeply care about.  Once you have your point of focus, silently express your most sincere thanks, allowing waves of enormous gratitude to fill your spirit.

You may experience goosebumps and even a palpable vibration or wave of energy through your chest and abdomen.

The practice of choosing thoughts and emotions and utilizing visualization to put ourselves into a loving and healing state is used with great benefit in mind-body medicine.  I touched briefly on this topic and one of the ways I use visualization in my everyday life here:

Visualization

Within about 2 months, I should have ready a sound-proof room that I plan on using to create more guided meditation, visualization, and relaxation sessions which I will post to our YouTube channel, so if this is an area of interest and you aren't already subscribed to our channel, you can do so here:

Guided Meditation with Dr. Ben Kim