by Andrea Goeglein
The hardest exercise I ever had to complete in my training with Marty Seligman and Ben Dean was the Gratitude Letter.
The steps for the exercise seemed simple enough.
- Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has impacted your life. Simple.
- Then do not mail the letter, but meet personally with your impactful person and read the letter aloud to them. That is right. Face to face read the letter to them.
Hardest exercise ever!
I did that exercise 14 years ago. I have never done it again. I still write lots of notes of gratitude. I get enormous joy out of writing them – every aspect from picking special cards, or paper, or sometimes creating photo cards to writing the note. But the face-to-face program. Have not done since the training!
Then I viewed a short video from my new favorite channel on YouTube, SoulPancake. There I found a video showing a 21-year-old completing that exact exercise, live, on camera. His focus of the letter was forgiveness vs. just gratitude, but the exercise is the same.
By the way, the young man in that video got the same reaction from his impactful person as I did. However do not let that deter you. To this day I know I grew in my heart in ways I can never explain. Guess it is time for me to take my own advice and Be Brave and write and deliver another of those letters!
Enjoy this clip and subscribe to SoulPancake. They create great work.
