A shared universe › Blog › The gratitude letter · Español
A gratitude letter is a letter to someone who did something important for you, telling them what they did and what it has meant in your life, which, if you can, you read to them in person. Almost all of us have someone who changed our lives and whom we never thanked as they deserved. The gratitude letter is one way of doing it.
In the same 2005 study in which Martin Seligman tested the three good things exercise, another group of people wrote a letter to someone they were grateful to and read it to them in person. According to the study, published in American Psychologist, it was one of the exercises that increased happiness.
The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley sums up what happened: of the five exercises tested, the gratitude letter gave the biggest boost to happiness one month later. By six months, however, the effect had gone, which is why some researchers suggest repeating it now and then with someone else. The participants were mostly American adults with university degrees.
Some thanks never get said. Out of shyness, because it seems too late, or because we assume the other person already knows what they did for us.
The psychologists Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley studied this in three experiments published in 2018 in Psychological Science. They asked a group of people to write a thank-you letter to someone important in their lives and to guess how that person would feel on receiving it. Then they asked the people who received the letters. The writers got it wrong: they thought the other person would be less surprised, less pleased and more uncomfortable than turned out to be the case.
The authors also found that the more awkward someone expected the moment to be, the less inclined they were to write. In other words, we are held back by a fear that, seen from the other side, is usually exaggerated.
Do not worry about spelling or style. Ten minutes may be enough to write it; what takes longest, sometimes, is making up your mind.
If you are going to see them, you can say you would like to read them something and ask them to let you finish. Read slowly. Notice what you feel and how the other person reacts, and then talk calmly about what it has stirred in you both. At the end, leave them the letter: it is a gift they can read again.
If you live far apart, a phone or video call works. According to the Greater Good Science Center, reading it in person brings more benefit than only writing it, but writing it is already a step.
It does not sit the same with everyone. In some cultures, and for some people, giving or receiving thanks so directly can stir a feeling of being in debt or of discomfort. If you know the person well, you will know what form reaches them best: a letter in their hand, a message or a few words said without ceremony.
You can also write to someone who has died. They will not read it, but writing it may help you put into words what they gave you and feel them close. Some people keep it, some read it aloud in a place they shared, some carry it with them.
If you would like to know more about how the bond with someone who has died carries on, you can read staying connected to someone who has gone.
In A shared universe you can light a star “For someone” or “For someone who is gone” with what you are grateful to them for, in a few words and without saying who you are. Others will keep it company during the seven days it shines. You can also share it with a link, for example with that person.