The Importance of Appreciation

I have been reading the book “Time to Think: The Power of Independent Thinking” by Nancy Kline. In one chapter, she talks about how appreciation stabilises the heart and stimulates thinking, what she calls good thinking that is productive. In the presence of criticism, this ability is inhibited. In order to function well therefore, appreciation appears to be a biological need.

I think we all know that we generally respond favourably to appreciation whether at work or home but perhaps we are less aware of this impact on our physiology. On the Heartmath website, you can see heart monitor readouts for someone experiencing frustration and then appreciation. The frustration readout is erratic whilst the appreciation one is smooth. We may experience appreciation from another person with a feeling of expansion whilst responding to criticism with a feeling of shutting down and defensiveness.

With this in mind, I think there are two ideas to consider; how we behave with others and how we treat ourselves. In my practice, I work with many people who are experiencing difficulties owing to some kind of criticism, insult or bullying they have experienced in the past. This is the closing down and defensiveness response I alluded to earlier. The negative behaviour directed at them has made them shy away from expressing themselves in perhaps many fields for fear of further insult.

I once worked with a young woman who had recently started a new job and was required to give presentations both to clients and other staff. This created a great deal of distress in her. Many people can relate to this in relation to public speaking.

When we worked with this, we discovered that her father’s berating, pushiness and criticism were at the root of it. When we looked into it deeply, my client discovered that her father’s intentions were in fact positive. He wanted his children to do better than he had in life and thought this was the way to motivate them to do just that. It’s quite sad isn’t it that often parents think this is the way to help their children be successful in life. I am happy to say that once we worked with this, my client was able to give presentations with relative ease.

The message here is to think about our words to other people. We may unwittingly cause them to withdraw somewhat into themselves. Sincere appreciation however that is specific and succinct can have the opposite effect and contribute to a sense of wellbeing in another and boost their good thinking skills.

Let’s look now at self-appreciation. Think about the things you say to yourself. In many ways, we are our own worst enemies berating ourselves for what we see as our faults or failures. We can start to change this by taking the time to appreciate ourselves. We could for example take some time at the end of the day to get quiet and mentally run through our day and spend some time appreciating ourselves in the different situations we experienced. Find something good to see and think about yourself. These kinds of practices build on themselves so that over time, it becomes more normal to appreciate more than we criticise ourselves.

Of course, like the client I referred to earlier, you may have troublesome memories of being criticised, humiliated or insulted that we can take the emotional charge out of so that you can be more yourself more easily every day.

References:

Time to Think: The Power of Independent Thinking. Nancy Kline

You can find appreciation exercises here: https://www.heartmath.org/resources/heartmath-tools/heartmath-appreciation-tool-and-exercises/