I Love You

사랑해요. I love you,

From your daughter, CS

That’s how I signed off a letter I wrote to my father last week, for his 80th birthday.

I love you.  Those words do not come easily to me. At all. I can count on one hand (perhaps one finger) the number of times I’ve ever said them to my parents. In our family, affection has never been absent, but more often implied than spoken.  So expressing this felt significant, and I was struck by what it required of me. 

This letter wasn’t about pretending my relationship with my father has been simple or perfect - it hasn’t. Like most long relationships, it’s had its share of difficulty and friction.  But that wasn’t the point.

What I chose to focus on for this milestone birthday were the things I most admire about him. The qualities I’m grateful for. The ways he has shaped and supported me, and influenced the person I am today.  In other words, this was a gratitude letter, specific and relational. About me and him.

Writing it took time and attention; recalling memories, feeling the feelings and being precise and honest about what I am most grateful for.  I already knew I had been many times thankful for my father, but this time I acted on it.  There’s a distinction. 

Gratitude… Platitudes?

We talk a lot about gratitude, especially in wellbeing spaces. The science of gratitude is well known.  We’re told we should feel grateful for things as often as possible.  In theory, this sounds straightforward. I’ve done the lists. I’ve tried the ‘three things I’m grateful for’ exercise. This has value, but this felt different. 

I realised that my thank-yous can often be reflexive.  It’s not that the everyday thank-yous are terrible; they matter, too.  They oil the gears of human interaction and acknowledge that we see one another.  But what surprised me was how different it felt to slow gratitude down.  To take it out of reflex and into felt intention and action. 

One letter.  One person.  One moment of saying what usually stays unsaid. 

This exercise in gratitude was not just a thought. It involved my body — my hands writing, my nervous system tolerating vulnerability, my voice choosing sincerity and honesty. 

Gratitude, when it stays in our heads, can remain a nice idea.  Gratitude, when it’s expressed, comes alive and powerful in relationship.  It moves and circulates in the spaces between us whilst anchoring the feeling deeper within. 

A Familiar Gesture - Taken Further

In yoga, we practice gratitude regularly.  At the end of a class, every time we bring our hands together, bow our heads, and offer thanks to ourselves, to one another, to our shared space and presence; that gesture is more than symbolic.  Especially when we are open and softened in our bodies, so gratitude arises more naturally. It’s… felt.

So a moment of gratitude is better than none. 

What I’m interested in now is what happens when we take that feeling and let it leave the room with us.  What happens when gratitude doesn’t stay a fleeting state, but becomes an action?

Doing Gratitude Differently  

Now feels like a good time for something uplifting; to allow the ripples of gratitude, like compassion, to spread. Still winter. Still close to the dark and cold.  A time when small, relational acts feel ever-so precious. 

I’m setting myself a gratitude challenge in February, inspired by this very process of relational gratitude I came across by Niall Mckeever (from The Weekend University) - turning appreciation into action, one person at a time. To prepare for this, I’ve made a list of some of the people I am most grateful for in my life.

I’ll share more about this when I start in earnest in February. I’d love for you to join me in this challenge!

But for now, I’ll just say this: 

You don’t need a challenge. Or a list. Or to write the perfect letter.  

But maybe just one message to someone you’ve always wanted to say thank you to from the heart, but for some reason never did.  Maybe one expression, deeply felt, honest and given freely. How would it feel to do that? 

Let’s practice.