We often think of gratitude solely as an emotion. Feeling grateful can lead to feeling happy; both are heavily sought after emotions.
But, if we take a closer look at some of the ways we express gratitude, we can challenge this notion and think of gratitude as a bigger picture.
When we communicate or express gratitude it is often in response to another’s acts of kindness.
Imagine your best friend recommends you for a job that you end up getting — you then reciprocate by showing gratefulness in order to highlight their actions.
In this sense, gratitude is a direct form of communication.
You receive a message, interpret the message, and then send a message of your own.
While practices like keeping a personal gratefulness journal can be very powerful, it is this direct, face-to-face communication of gratefulness that appears to hold the most power.
Following this line of thinking, by improving our communication skills we also improve our ability to practice and express gratefulness.
Happify has put together an amazing infographic on ways we can improve our communication, based on scientifically proven data.