“Count your blessings! But don’t stop counting once you’ve listed all the obvious ones. Keep digging deeper and deeper. . . . What if you set aside a few minutes at the end of the day to count your blessings? It might not change your circumstances, but I guarantee it would change you.”- Mark Batterson
“Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”- Robert Brault, philosopher
As Mark Batterson moves on in Chapter 4 of A Million Little Miracles, he talks about a key component of consciousness. A cluster of cells called the reticular activating system. Most significantly, this system determines what we notice and don’t notice. In other words, we see what we’re looking for.
Pastor Batterson describes this tendency as a function of confirmation bias, perceptual bias, and response bias. So, when you look for something to complain about, you’ll find it. Therefore, Mark advocates keeping a gratitude journal. Because that trains your brain to notice everyday miracles. Thus, is creates a virtuous cycle where gratitude serves as both cause and effect.
Furthermore, Mark states, a concept in neuroscience exists called Hebb’s law: Neurons that fire together wire together. Since gratitude forms a neural circuit, like everything else, you either use it or lose it. Hence, Mark explains:
“When you train yourself to identify things you’re grateful, like a game of I Spy, those neural pathways get longer and stronger. Did you know that gratitude and anxiety can’t coexist in the human mind? There is something about gratitude that flips the switch on anxiety. If you increase gratitude, you decrease anxiety by default. . . . Gratitude is the difference between fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest.”
In conclusion, Pastor Batterson reminds us that God paused and took joy at the end of each of the six creation days. Hence, Mark exhorts, after you count your blessings, flip those blessings for other people. As a result, your gratitude grows like compound interest.
Today’s question: What helps you keep digging deeper and deeper to name your blessings? Please share.
Coming Monday: the February Short Meditation, “The deeply formed mission”
Tomorrow’s blog: “Gratitude = wanting what you have”