Gratitude is a feeling, an appreciation of what you do have, an acknowledgment of what has gone right, an appreciation for the things that others do for us, an appreciation that our lives are better than others.

• Feel grateful: Gratitude is a positive emotion and not just a thought or an acknowledgment. Feeling gratitude is an important emotion, and being able to express gratitude is part of having emotional intelligence. When I was a child my parents instilled in my brother and me the need to write -Thank You letters for any presents we received. I still write thank you letters. However, now I have the feeling of gratitude to go with the thank you. There is more to gratitude than just the words "Thank you" there is also a sense of appreciation, a feeling of gratefulness.
• Be grateful for what you have: Gratitude involves focusing on what we do have and being thankful for it. We appreciate things that belong to us, the parts of our body that work, the food in our fridge, the money we receive, our car and the garage to keep it in, the clothes in our wardrobe, the partner whom we love, the father who lives nearby, the ring we inherited, the ergonomic chair we sit on, the office desk we work at, the internet connection we have, and so on. That is what gratitude is, and it can help us develop our emotional intelligence by increasing our positive emotions, and thus, our emotional resilience and emotional self-management. Gratitude means we notice and express appreciation for what goes right in our life. It is so easy to gloss over these things and take them for granted. Imagine a staff room that ran on gratitude. Now, that would be emotionally intelligent! How much gratitude and emotional intelligence are displayed in your staff room?
• Be grateful for help: No man is an island. You may think you can be autonomous and live without the support of others, but in fact, it's not possible and none of us do it. We just take for granted what others do for us. Gratitude means that we notice and we are grateful for the things that people do for us, not just the acts of personal kindness that people deliberately do for us, but the day-to-day things that happen with us barely noticing. Be grateful for the water in your kitchen tap is only made possible by a group of people who build dams, lay water pipes, and monitor the flow and provision of water. Without them, you would not get water. Giving thanks and feeling appreciative of this kind of service is part of developing gratitude. Be grateful for the garbage collectors--imagine how difficult your life would be if this didn't happen? Gratitude is acknowledging the value of such a service. Appreciating the things that others do helps you build more positive emotions in your life, and thus, develop increased emotional resilience and higher levels of emotional intelligence.
• Be grateful that you are better off than others: How easy it is to feel sorry for ourselves, to feel that our lives are not good enough and that we are really hard done by. Stop for a moment! This is not gratitude, this is misery. Gratitude, by contrast, is noticing how much worse off others are and appreciating and being thankful for our own lives, in comparison. Imagine that you are feeling a little bit sick. You go to your doctor. Your doctor asks for a series of tests to find out what is wrong with you. You don't like doctors, or exams, and dread hospitals. Stop for a minute and compare your situation to the situation of a mother in a very poor region, who has no food, water, doctors, or medical supplies, to treat her sick baby. You could find much to be grateful for and appreciate. What would that mother give to actually have a doctor to go to? To have access to medical tests to find out what is wrong? And to have treatment available to herself and her family? When you stop and compare your life with those of others who are less well off than you are, and you express appreciation, then you have gratitude.

Thankfulness awakens our brain's pleasure centers, and our bodies produce bio-chemicals that activate a strong and powerful sense of our potential, well-being and connection. Our bodies respond with vitality and a stronger immune system. We may be inspired to serve others, to contribute to the greater good. So, why not give thanks. Something that also is very important to increase our vitality and immune system is the act of forgiving the wrongdoer of our life and ourselves. Because, when you don't forgive your body releases all the chemicals of the stress response as if you were in danger. Each time you react, adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine enter the body. When you hold a chronic grudge, you could think about it 20 times a day, and every time all those chemicals flood your body and brain and those chemicals limit creativity, and limit problem-solving. Cortisol and norepinephrine cause your brain to enter what we call "the no- thinking zone," and over time, they lead you to feel helpless and like a victim. When you forgive, you wipe all of that clean. Forgiveness is an emotional intelligence choice.