How an Attitude of Gratitude can Turn Your Life Around

The act of being grateful has been drilled into Indians much before motivational posters and Live Love Laugh throw pillows came around. The one response we can bet on, when recounting any sort of trauma, is advice to be strong and thankful it wasn’t worse. All around us, we are bombarded with stories of everyday people showing courage and gratitude, and encouraging others to do the same.

Cancer conqueror Neerja Malik designed her life around this. “When I first got the diagnosis, I went into auto-pilot mode. It hit me only after we reached home, and my husband had to cancel lunch with our friends,” says Neerja. That was 1998. Since then, she has had another bout of cancer, conquered both, written two books and counselled several others — some from the recovery room of a hospital. Throughout, she has remained optimistic, with only kind words for what life brought to her.

“I am grateful that God planned my life in a way that I was equipped to handle. I have experienced broken bones, miscarriages and cancer, but I was also blessed with strong parents, two children — my reason for survival — a good education and a gift of the gab that helps me help others in the same boat,” she says.

What we instinctively feel, and what most of our religions teach us — that there is good in being grateful — has backing in science. “Gratitude generates feel-good emotions which are essential for brain health and well-being,” says Kolkata-based psychologist Mansi Poddar.

She quotes a 2003 study, Counting Blessings vs Burdens that required patients to keep a gratitude journal: “Sixteen per cent of the subjects reported reduced symptoms, and 10% of subjects reported a decrease in pain. It also showed that subjects were more willing to exercise, and were far more motivated in their recovery.”

Similar studies in people with hypertension revealed that expressing gratitude showed a significant decrease in their systolic blood pressure.

It is no wonder that Gratitude worked magic for Neerja too. 

- An article in Hindu by Sweta Akundi on December 2, 2019.

Gratitude is the Password to Happiness says Neerja Malik

When you finish meeting Neerja Malik, you feel like you have just stepped off a trampoline – you are left feeling so buoyant in spirit, well, from laughing! You feel you have met a bhangra dancer, a Sumo wrestler, a stand-up comic and a six-year-old — all at once — that’s so much energy her mere presence injects in you! 

Here is someone who has seen many storms in her life — broken bones, multiple miscarriages, a still-born baby after yet another prolonged conception process and two episodes of breast cancer within six years of each other! Anyone else may have crumbled. But Neerja is different! She’s happy facing her life, no matter what comes her way!   

   

Here’s a peek into her uncommon joie de vivre. “You know the best thing about having chemo(therapy)? No parlour visits – aha! Because no hair, you see! That’s happiness to me!” she says. 

Cancer, Neerja says, has to be faced, not feared. “No matter what, the treatment process has to be undergone – even if it means dealing with pain, chemo, hair-loss and uncertainty!” she explains. So, for 18 years now, she’s been encouraging people to face cancer, treating it as ‘work’; this is also why she wrote I Inspire in 2015. “My greatest joy is being able to touch lives and to inspire people to never give up,” she says. 

Neerja believes that if you keep thinking of life as a war where you have to soldier on, you will end up, at some point, feeling battle-weary. She encourages us to see life the way her father has taught her to. She says,“On the day I was leaving for my first chemo session, he said, ‘ Beta , don’t fight life. You can never win that fight. Instead, face it.’ I took that advice to heart. No situation scares me anymore!”

Neerja has 26-year-old twins, Shivani and Sidharth, and this Christmas marks the 38th anniversary of her marriage with Mandeep. She feels her entire life is a miracle! “Har Waqt Shukran (Be grateful in each moment) – this is Neerja’s mantra. She vows that gratitude is the password to happiness! Her parting line, as she hugs me tight, sums up her spirit, “ Hameysha Khush Raho! Mein Khush! Ranga Khush! Mogambo Khush! Sab Log Khush (This is a variation of a Punjabi saying and basically means — Always be happy! For it really, really, pays to be happy!” 

-- DTNext article by Avis Viswanathan. The writer is a life coach, happiness curator and author of Fall Like A Rose Petal. You can reach him through his blog avisviswanathan.wordpress.com