Praised by the big names in positive psychologythe gratitude visit is undoubtedly the ultimate practice for generating positive emotions; it involves writing a letter to someone who has had a major positive impact on your life and visiting them to read the letter out loud.
Cicero spoke about the gratitude by evoking “the mother of all virtues”. Maybe it’s true!
Scientific research in the field of positive psychology tends to show that gratitude is of the utmost importance for well-being and satisfaction in life.
What has the research taught us? Gratitude is recognized as having 5 major benefits:
- A well-being hasincreased: the active practice of gratitude can significantly increase the feeling of happiness;
- A well-being sustainable : the active practice of gratitude for three consecutive weeks has notable effects that last for several months;
- A material detachment : the desire to consume products and material goods decreases significantly and is no longer associated with your needs in terms of status and success;
- Increased sociability : being grateful makes you more empathetic, more helpful and more available to others;
- Better health : it has been proven that cultivating gratitude reduces stress, improves the quality of sleep, increases the ability to concentrate!
There is therefore no doubt that we would all benefit greatly from embarking on the path of gratitude.
The letter of gratitude
Letter of Gratitude is an extremely powerful exercise for generating positive emotions… It involves writing a letter to thank someone who has had a significant positive influence in your life, but you never had the opportunity to honor. It could be a teacher, a mentor, a parent, a grandparent, your spouse, a friend, a colleague… Someone who helped you, who accompanied you, who inspired you, who has shown solidarity, kindness or generosity or even someone who mattered to you, whom you are happy to have met at a certain period of your life… In short, someone to whom you wish to show sincere acknowledgement.
You don’t need to write a novel, but be specific and concrete about what this person did for you and what that gave you. Explain to him how his personality has had a positive impact on your life. Studies have shown that expressing gratitude helps to strengthen personal (romantic, friendly, family, etc.) professional ties. People who are shown gratitude are more motivated to strengthen relationships afterwards.
The visit of gratitude
If you are particularly daring, a step above the gratitude letter, there is the gratitude visit. Instead of sending your letter, you arrange to go to the home of the person concerned and you read your letter to them in person… To ensure that they will be there when you travel, you can contact someone from his immediate entourage advances to make him an accomplice. Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, recommends maintaining the element of surprise.
When you are in front of the person, tell them that you would like to read them a letter that you wrote to show them your gratitude. Ask him not to interrupt you before you have finished reading your letter of gratitude.
Take your courage in both hands and go for it! Take your time and, as you read, try to pay attention to their reactions and yours. What do you feel? You both risk reaching a very high level of emotional interactions… Tears are almost always there!
At the end of reading, discuss your respective feelings together. If you live too far from this person, you could possibly organize a virtual gratitude visit. It works very well too, but the emotions will necessarily be less heightened than if you could get caught in the lows!
The 3 key stages of the gratitude visit
- Think about someone who had a profound impact on your life, someone you never contacted and never told how much they influenced you.
- Write a letter of gratitude to this person telling them specifically how they made a difference in your life. The letter does not have to be long (one page is enough), but it must be explicit enough to understand what, thanks to it, has changed in you. In the letter, explain how this impact is still felt in your life today. Don’t forget to say how you still think of him or her today.
- Go to the person’s home (it’s even more powerful if the gratitude visit is unplanned) and gather your courage to read your letter out loud to them.
