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Gratitude is a powerful tool for health leaders—both for personal and professional reasons. Gratitude can be used by leaders to help establish a healthy work culture as it increases feelings of optimism and joy, decreases anxiety and depression. Practicing gratitude helps individuals and teams feel more connected and able to work through problems together. Grateful people have been found to be more empathetic, self confident and resilient. They experience less envy, resentment, and frustration as well.
If there was ever a time for a gratitude practice, it was 2022!
So, as my year end gift to the Vernissage Health community, here are two of my favourite pieces about gratitude and appreciation. These pieces have been shared as a leadership teaching touchstones - the importance of practicing of gratitude and appreciation by leaders. Please take a a few moments to be immersed in gratitude for the small, important things life brings.
Want to be happy? Be grateful. Brother David Steindl-Rast — 96 year-old author, scholar, and Benedictine monk — is beloved the world over for his enduring message about gratefulness as the true source of lasting happiness. Known to many as the “grandfather of gratitude,” Br. David has been a source of inspiration and spiritual friendship to countless leaders and luminaries around the world. His TED talk has been viewed almost 10,000,000 times. https://grateful.org/resource/want-to-be-happy-be-grateful/
Louise Schwartzberg - Nature, Beauty and Gratitude. Nature's beauty can be easily missed — but not through Louie Schwartzberg's lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ
I'll end the year with Thank You. Thank you for being a valued member of the Vernissage Health community and for the leadership you bring to our health system every day! Thanks for continuing to learn and deepen your talents, grow the seeds planted in Vernissage Health, and live its touchstones of leadership and dialogue. Now, more than ever, we need health leaders who are mindful, trusting, inclusive, empathic, resilient, and grateful.
For my close colleagues in the Vernissage Health Project Team - Merci, Miigwech, Faleminderit Shume and Toda Raba!
May you all stay safe and feel the joy, love and peace of the season! May 2023 bring you happiness and fulfillment!
Warm regards, Wendy