Diana Butler Bass, 100 Days of Gratitude
Dan Harris discusses training gratitude as a skill with author and religion scholar Diana Butler Bass, who shares her journey from evangelicalism to Christian contemplative practices like Centering Prayer. Bass explains how writing her book "Grateful" transformed her life by teaching her to cultivate gratitude amidst personal and political challenges.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Handling Positive Thoughts During Meditation
Encouraging Loved Ones to Meditate: Modeling Mindfulness
Introduction to Diana Butler Bass and the Topic of Gratitude
Diana's Journey into Christian Contemplative Practices
Centering Prayer: Similarities to Other Meditation Forms
Evolution of Diana's Meditation Practice and Personal Struggles
Motivation for Writing the Book 'Grateful'
The Trainability of Gratitude and Personal Transformation
The Complex Nature of Gratitude: Beyond Transactional Exchanges
The Unexpected Process of Writing 'Grateful' During Political Turmoil
Practical Gratitude Practices and Daily Prompts
Gratitude as a Counter to Scarcity Mindset in Politics
6 Key Concepts
Impermanence
A fundamental insight in meditation, recognizing that nothing lasts, including thoughts, emotions, and even ourselves. Understanding impermanence helps one develop a healthier relationship with the transient nature of life, fostering wise responses rather than blind reactions.
Mindful Parenting
The idea that the most effective way to encourage mindfulness or meditation in children, especially those with anxiety, is for parents to model the practice themselves. Children are more likely to adopt behaviors they observe in their parents rather than those they are lectured about.
Centering Prayer
A classic form of meditation within the Christian tradition, often involving sitting quietly to discover the presence of God within. It can include mantra-like repetitions, such as the name of Jesus or a specific prayer, with the aim of moving towards silence and deep spiritual experience.
Gratitude as a Trainable Skill
The concept that gratitude is not a fixed personality trait but a skill that can be cultivated and improved through consistent practice. It involves consciously recognizing the gifts and abundance in one's life, leading to a shift in perspective and personal well-being.
Spiritual Multiplication of Gratitude
The phenomenon where practicing gratitude for one thing makes it easier to find gratitude for two things, and then three, and so on. This process suggests that gratitude can grow exponentially, leading to a profound shift in how one perceives the world.
Politics of Gratitude
A vision for political and social life based on abundance, connection, care for one another, and social humility, rather than scarcity and fear. It involves recognizing shared gifts and working towards justice, seeing political injustice as a corruption of the inherent abundance of creation.
6 Questions Answered
Treat positive thoughts the same way as any other thought: notice it, perhaps make a soft mental note (e.g., 'thinking' or 'joy'), explore how it shows up in the body, and then gently escort attention back to the breath, recognizing that it too will pass.
Parents cannot force meditation, as it is likely to backfire. The most effective approach is to model mindfulness oneself, allowing the practice to seep into the child by osmosis, and to reframe issues using meditative concepts like responding wisely rather than reacting blindly.
Centering Prayer is a Christian contemplative practice where one sits quietly to experience God's presence, often using a mantra (like the name of Jesus or a specific phrase) or focusing on scripture. It shares similarities with secular mantra-based and silent breath meditations, including the use of beads and the goal of deep silence.
Yes, gratitude is a trainable skill. By consciously engaging in practices that recognize the gifts and abundance in one's life, individuals can cultivate a disposition of gratefulness, which can transform their perspective and well-being.
Writing 'Grateful' during a period of personal distress and political upheaval transformed Diana's perspective, helping her to see the world differently and move from a place of bitterness and overwhelm to one of hope and connection. Her husband even noted that writing the book 'saved her life'.
The core practice is developing a disposition that recognizes we live in a 'gifted universe,' where abundance is constantly present, from the air we breathe to simple acts of grace. This recognition shifts one from a vision of scarcity and fear to one of abundance and thankfulness.
14 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Gifted Universe Disposition
Develop a disposition to recognize that you live in a ‘gifted universe’ where abundance is constantly present, regardless of circumstances. This practice helps you realize ’everything we need is here,’ fostering thankfulness and moving from a vision of abundance rather than scarcity and fear.
2. Train Gratitude as a Skill
Actively work on cultivating gratitude, recognizing it as a trainable life skill rather than a fixed trait. This can lead to a deeper sense of thanksgiving, appreciation for abundance, and seeing good in others, helping to prevent regret in later life.
3. Broaden Gratitude’s Definition
Understand gratitude as more complex than just transactional exchanges like thank-you notes, involving both feelings and actions expressed individually and communally. This broader understanding allows for appreciation of diverse forms of gratitude and a more profound experience of gratefulness.
4. Treat All Thoughts Equally
In meditation, treat all thoughts (positive or negative) the same way: respectfully acknowledge them, gently escort your attention back to the breath, and optionally make a mental note of the thought or emotion. This practice helps you avoid being ‘owned’ by thoughts or emotions, allowing you to respond wisely rather than reacting blindly, and to recognize impermanence.
5. Model Mindfulness for Kids
If you want your child to be mindful, actively practice mindfulness yourself, as children are more likely to model what you do than what you say. Your mindful behavior and responses can allow mindfulness to ‘seep into’ your child by osmosis and help reframe issues for them, even if they don’t meditate.
6. Politics of Gratitude
Engage in the political process from a place of hopefulness, recognizing the universe’s abundance and viewing political narratives of scarcity as injustices. This perspective provides empowerment to participate, seeing connections and the importance of sharing gifts rather than hoarding them.
7. Thanks ‘In’ Everything
Adopt the mindset of giving thanks ‘in everything,’ rather than ‘for everything,’ especially during difficult times. This allows you to find gratitude amidst challenges, helping you see connections, love for neighbor, and how gifts should be shared, without being thankful for the negative circumstances themselves.
8. Daily Gratitude Prompts
Incorporate daily gratitude practices, such as keeping a gratitude journal, writing thank-you notes for kindness (not just gifts), or using a physical prompt like a ‘gratitude rock.’ These tools help you recognize and record the gifts you’ve been given, making it easier to find more things to be grateful for as ‘gratitude functions almost like a sort of spiritual multiplication’.
9. Negative Prompts for Gratitude
When faced with distressing circumstances or negative news, use them as a ’negative prompt’ to actively seek out and identify things you are grateful for. This technique can shift your perspective, reminding you to look for the good even amidst challenges, and can lead to seeing the world differently.
10. Grounding Practices for Anxiety
When dealing with anxiety and depression, explore different tools and practices such as guided meditation, silent meditation, walking a labyrinth, or being out in nature. These practices can help reduce stress and fear and provide grounding during difficult periods.
11. Meditation: Sanity’s First Aid
View meditation as a ‘first aid kit for sanity’ or for the human condition, practicing it to model sanity and spread it through your social network. Learning to meditate helps individuals become ’little nodes, little ambassadors of sanity,’ which can positively influence others.
12. Gently Recommend Meditation
If you wish to encourage loved ones to meditate, do so by gently recommending it rather than pushing it too hard. Pushing meditation can be annoying, backfire, and may imply that the person is ‘messed up’ or ‘broken’.
13. Practice Centering Prayer Mantra
Engage in Christian centering prayer by using a mantra, such as ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ repeating it and gradually dropping words until only ‘Lord’ remains, followed by silence. This allows the words to ‘come into you’ and be experienced with great depth, similar to other mantra meditations.
14. Christian Silent Breath Meditation
Practice classic silent breath meditation, potentially using rosary beads or mala beads, as a form of Christian centering prayer. This practice fosters a similar experience to silent Quaker meetings or health and wellness retreats, promoting inner silence and presence.
6 Key Quotes
The point is that when you're overtaken by any kind of thought or emotion, positive or negative, that you aren't owned by it, that you can respond wisely to it rather than reacting blindly.
Dan Harris
The best way to get a mindful kid is to be a mindful parent. And that's a pain in the butt to hear because it means you have to do the work.
Dan Harris
My parents would have been happy for anything that I would discover in my life that made my spiritual journey better, that would make me a better person, and that would contribute to love in the world.
Diana Butler Bass
I don't think they're representative. I think there is – maybe they're representative in some way. I don't know. I actually don't have the data, so I shouldn't speak to too much authority. But I do know that there are many in the evangelical world who are kind of anti-meditation.
Dan Harris
And what I learned in that process was that when you're grateful for one thing, it becomes easier to be grateful for two things. And then it becomes easier to be grateful for three. And that gratitude functions almost like a sort of spiritual multiplication after a little while.
Diana Butler Bass
And that verse doesn't say for everything, give thanks. I don't give thanks for the fact that we're living in a great time of political division and upheaval of pain and fear for so many people, but we can be thankful in these times in such a way that we can see more clearly the connections we have with one another and what should be our love for neighbor and how gifts are to be shared and not hoarded.
Diana Butler Bass
2 Protocols
Christian Mantra Meditation (Centering Prayer)
Diana Butler Bass- Begin by silently repeating a longer mantra, such as 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
- Gradually drop one word off the mantra with each repetition, creating more space and fewer words.
- Continue until the final word is 'Lord.'
- Conclude the meditation in silence, sitting and experiencing the depth of the prayer.
Daily Gratitude Practice (The Gratitude Rock)
Diana Butler Bass- Acquire a small object, like a river rock, with the word 'gratitude' (or a similar prompt) on it.
- Place the object on your bedside table next to your cell phone.
- Before falling asleep, let the rock prompt you to say 'thank you' for something that happened during the day.
- Upon waking, if your hand lands on the rock before your phone, let it prompt you to think 'Oh, thank you' as your first thought of the day.
- Carry the rock with you when you travel to maintain the practice.