My original intent for the blog was to focus on gratitude and other qualities like: empathy, compassion, peace, forgiveness, awe and wonder, qualities I want to cultivate within myself and see more of in the world at large. Then, we had an election — that left me gobsmacked. Isn\u2019t that a great word \u2013 gobsmacked? It means to be utterly astonished, astounded. Sounds about right.<\/p>\n
But, now it\u2019s time to return to gratitude. Just typing the word, I sigh, my shoulders drop from up around my ears, and the door on my heart creaks open (I must remember to oil that rusty hinge).<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t that amazing \u2013 the physicality of gratitude? Quite a powerful energy around gratitude, for sure. I\u2019ll take more of that, please.<\/p>\n
Before I embark on posts exploring the breadth and depth of gratitude, it might be helpful to establish a working definition. I blow dust off my worn Webster\u2019s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary with the cracked binding, and carefully turn the fragile tissue-paper pages until I alight on page 365, which lists gratitude in between gratis and gratuitous. Webster unhelpfully defines gratitude thusly: \u201cthe state of being grateful.\u201d I flip to grateful, from the Latin gratus \u2013 and definition 1a says, \u201cappreciative of benefits received.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feels lifeless and academic, so I set the dictionary aside, and on-line stumble across the work of Robert Emmons, Ph.D., a leading expert on gratitude. He is a prof at UC Davis, the founding editor of The Journal of Positive Psychology <\/em>and the author of several books on gratitude. Emmons, AKA \u201cthe gratitude guy,\u201d says gratitude is an emotion with two key components. One: \u201cIt\u2019s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we\u2019ve received.\u201d Two: \u201cWe recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves,\u201d and can arise from a variety of places, human and divine.<\/p>\n Now, you\u2019re talking — that\u2019s a definition with sparks coming out of its butt.<\/p>\n Before I blather on in subsequent posts about gratitude in some form (day-to-day anecdotes, assessments, ways to cultivate, survey results, newspaper articles, quotes, poetry, etc.), I thought it might be fun to post this short questionnaire, so you can get an idea about how grateful you are compared to others.<\/p>\n The Gratitude Questionnaire-Six Item Form (GQ-6) <\/strong><\/p>\n Using the scale below as a guide, write a number beside each statement to indicate how much you agree with it. 1 = strongly disagree 2 = disagree 3 = slightly disagree 4 = neutral 5 = slightly agree 6 = agree 7 = strongly agree <\/strong><\/p>\n ____1. I have so much in life to be thankful for.<\/p>\n ____2. If I had to list everything that I felt grateful for, it would be a very long list.<\/p>\n ____3. When I look at the world, I don\u2019t see much to be grateful for.*<\/p>\n ____4. I am grateful to a wide variety of people.<\/p>\n ____5. As I get older I find myself more able to appreciate the people, events, and situations that have been part of my life history.<\/p>\n ____6. Long amounts of time can go by before I feel grateful to something or someone.*<\/p>\n Scoring Instructions: <\/strong><\/p>\n Interpretation: <\/strong><\/p>\n Based on a sample of 1,224 adults who took the GQ-6 as part of a feature on the Spirituality and Health website, here are some benchmarks for making sense of your score.<\/p>\n 25th Percentile<\/strong>: Someone who scored a 35 out of 42 on the GQ-6 scored higher than 25% of the people who took it. If you scored below a 35, then you are in the bottom one-fourth of the sample of Spirituality and Health visitors in terms of gratitude.<\/p>\n 50th Percentile<\/strong>: Someone who scored a 38 out of 42 on the GQ-6 scored higher than 50% of the people who took it. If you scored below a 38, then you are in the bottom one-half of people who took the survey.<\/p>\n 75th Percentile<\/strong>: Someone who scored a 41 out of 42 on the GQ-6 scored higher than 75% of the individuals who took the GQ-6 on the Spirituality and Health website.<\/p>\n If you scored a 42 or higher, then you scored among the top 13% of our Spirituality and Health Sample.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Reader Invitation: How did you score? Was it a surprise? I would love to hear how you scored if you feel comfortable sharing the information either in the comment section or by e-mail at beth@bethlambdin.com. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I will generally reply to your comments within 24 hours. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n The Gratitude Assessment was published in a scientific journal for use in the public domain. You do not need to contact any of the authors for permission to use these scales in non-commercial research. You may not use the scales for commercial purposes without permission.<\/p>\n The Greater Good Science Center<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My original intent for the blog was to focus on gratitude and other qualities like: empathy, compassion, peace, forgiveness, awe and wonder, qualities I want to cultivate within myself and see more of in the world at large. Then, we had an election — that left me gobsmacked. Isn\u2019t that a great word \u2013 gobsmacked?… How Grateful Are You? A Short Gratitude Questionnaire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melambdin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n