Is Gratitude Contagious?

Molly writes...

Albert Einstein famously said, “creativity is contagious, pass it on.” I love this quote. I think it is quite accurate, and I love when I see it in action. We see it often in the Zentangle Community. It is wonderful to witness those who create with the Zentangle Method, sharing their creative ways and ideas with others. We all feed from and learn from each other without a sense of competition, and you really do feel like the creativity is contagious.

In our Zentangle practice, we begin and end with gratitude. That is how it has always been. We are not definitive about what one should be grateful for in those moments, but rather that we honor time and space for it. Naturally, most of us would say that we are grateful for things in our lives in general sense, but how often do we pause and think about the specific things we are grateful for in any given moment? I love that my Zentangle practice has changed the way I think and focus on gratitude. By pausing and putting a specific intention toward gratitude I find myself filling up with warmth and positivity. By narrowing in on one thing I am grateful for, I find my thoughts slowly morphing into something else I am grateful for, and then another thing and so on. The more I focus on the things I am grateful for and the beauty I see in my own world, the more beautiful things I see in other people and places. It becomes a beautiful seamless feeling of love. Gratitude changes your perspective and affects how you interact with others. I have found that my sense of gratitude starts to appear beyond my own being.

As I notice this stronger connection with gratitude in myself, I start to notice it in others as well. Have you ever been around someone in a dire situation that in that moment, filled with whatever yuck or challenge, they instead choose to focus on the beautiful thing, the good thing or the wonderful people around them? They have just gone through something so hard, yet they come out of it more grateful than before. And you think to yourself, how extraordinary is that? Given the choice, they chose to focus on gratitude. Because that is what fills us up and lifts us up. It is often the people with less that have deeper sense of gratitude for what they have. When I see this and feel this, I too become humbled and begin to feel more grateful for the things I have been blessed with … almost as if I caught the sensation from them. And this is what had me thinking. Is gratitude contagious? From my experience and opinion, I think it is. And if so… I encourage all those intrigued to catch the gratitude fever. And know that when in proximity with others, it will be passed along, with gratitude.