- Email: [email protected]
Gratitude
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Gratitude Laura Searcy, MN, APRN, PPCNP-BC, President and Fellow I enter the Holiday Season with a profound sense of gratitude. I am so grateful for my family, as their love and support provide the foundation that enables me to pursue my personal and professional goals. I am particularly grateful for my husband, who graciously juggles his schedule to adapt travel and time demands related to my commitments as your President, and often serves as my early morning or late night editor. My employers are owed a large debt of gratitude for their support and the flexibility in my clinical schedule to fulfill my NAPNAP commitments. I am so grateful for NAPNAP and my colleagues. The contributions you all make to the health and well-being of children are incalculable. This organization and its leaders and members have been a vital part of my professional life. From my first national conference over 20 years ago as a newly minted pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP), I have experienced friendship, support, encouragement and mentoring from so many colleagues within my Georgia Chapter and throughout the country. The wide ranges of NAPNAP educational and professional development opportunities have taken me on professional journeys I would never have imagined as a novice PNP. I am extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to serve as your President this year. I would be remiss if I did not also express how grateful I am for our national office leadership and staff, who do outstanding work behind the scenes to manage and grow our professional association and support the needs of all our members. I encourage all of you to take the time during this busy season to cultivate a sense of gratitude. It seems gratitude has more to it than simple politeness and consideration. Gratitude can be defined as the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself and as a general state of thankfulness and/or appreciation (Sansone & Sansone, 2010). There is an increasing
Correspondence: Laura Searcy, MN, APRN, PPCNP-BC, President and Fellow NAPNAP, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, 5 Hanover Square, Suite 1401, New York, NY 10004; e-mail: [email protected]. J Pediatr Health Care. (2016) 30, 517. 0891-5245/$36.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2016.08.003
www.jpedhc.org
body of research that shows many positive benefits of gratitude and its effects. Gratitude has been found to be correlated with psychological well-being (Wood, Joseph, & Maltby, 2009). Adolescents who counted blessings showed enhanced optimism and life satisfaction (Froh, Sefick & Emmons, 2008). Gratitude has also been shown to be related to improved sleep quality and duration (Wood, Joseph, Lloyd, & Atkins, 2009). I know I often feel frustrated and helpless with the increased polarization evident in our current society and the trend toward angry and uncivil discourse. In my clinical practice there seems to be an increasing number of barriers that make it more difficult to deliver comprehensive, high-quality care. I too often find myself leaving work feeling frustrated, annoyed, and discouraged. I also know that if I take time to stop and consciously attend to the positive little moments of beauty in each day, my attitude changes. At times, I can even be grateful for some of the challenges, because they create opportunities for personal and professional growth. With all of the demands on our time, and the professional challenges we face, it is hard not to get caught up in the rush and fail to be mindful of the positive influences in our lives. I wonder what would happen if we all could be just a little more committed to recognizing the giving, loving and thoughtful acts of the people we encounter in our personal and professional lives. What a wonderful prescription to help counter the angry, self-centered, and destructive influences that seem to so easily become the focus of our attention. So, I challenge you to counter the negative attitudes and emotions we all experience from within ourselves or from others with a conscious and regular practice of gratitude. It is a priceless gift to both keep and give away. REFERENCES Froh, J. J., Sefick, W. J., & Emmons, R. A. (2008). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of School Psychology, 46, 213233. Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2010). Gratitude and well being: The benefits of appreciation. Psychiatry, 7(11), 18-22. Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., & Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 66, 43-48. Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., & Maltby, J. (2009). Gratitude predicts psychological well-being above the big five facets. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(4), 443-447.
November/December 2016
517
Gratitude Laura Searcy, MN, APRN, PPCNP-BC, President and Fellow I enter the Holiday Season with a profound sense of gratitude. I am so grateful for my family, as their love and support provide the foundation that enables me to pursue my personal and professional goals. I am particularly grateful for my husband, who graciously juggles his schedule to adapt travel and time demands related to my commitments as your President, and often serves as my early morning or late night editor. My employers are owed a large debt of gratitude for their support and the flexibility in my clinical schedule to fulfill my NAPNAP commitments. I am so grateful for NAPNAP and my colleagues. The contributions you all make to the health and well-being of children are incalculable. This organization and its leaders and members have been a vital part of my professional life. From my first national conference over 20 years ago as a newly minted pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP), I have experienced friendship, support, encouragement and mentoring from so many colleagues within my Georgia Chapter and throughout the country. The wide ranges of NAPNAP educational and professional development opportunities have taken me on professional journeys I would never have imagined as a novice PNP. I am extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to serve as your President this year. I would be remiss if I did not also express how grateful I am for our national office leadership and staff, who do outstanding work behind the scenes to manage and grow our professional association and support the needs of all our members. I encourage all of you to take the time during this busy season to cultivate a sense of gratitude. It seems gratitude has more to it than simple politeness and consideration. Gratitude can be defined as the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself and as a general state of thankfulness and/or appreciation (Sansone & Sansone, 2010). There is an increasing
Correspondence: Laura Searcy, MN, APRN, PPCNP-BC, President and Fellow NAPNAP, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, 5 Hanover Square, Suite 1401, New York, NY 10004; e-mail: [email protected]. J Pediatr Health Care. (2016) 30, 517. 0891-5245/$36.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2016.08.003
www.jpedhc.org
body of research that shows many positive benefits of gratitude and its effects. Gratitude has been found to be correlated with psychological well-being (Wood, Joseph, & Maltby, 2009). Adolescents who counted blessings showed enhanced optimism and life satisfaction (Froh, Sefick & Emmons, 2008). Gratitude has also been shown to be related to improved sleep quality and duration (Wood, Joseph, Lloyd, & Atkins, 2009). I know I often feel frustrated and helpless with the increased polarization evident in our current society and the trend toward angry and uncivil discourse. In my clinical practice there seems to be an increasing number of barriers that make it more difficult to deliver comprehensive, high-quality care. I too often find myself leaving work feeling frustrated, annoyed, and discouraged. I also know that if I take time to stop and consciously attend to the positive little moments of beauty in each day, my attitude changes. At times, I can even be grateful for some of the challenges, because they create opportunities for personal and professional growth. With all of the demands on our time, and the professional challenges we face, it is hard not to get caught up in the rush and fail to be mindful of the positive influences in our lives. I wonder what would happen if we all could be just a little more committed to recognizing the giving, loving and thoughtful acts of the people we encounter in our personal and professional lives. What a wonderful prescription to help counter the angry, self-centered, and destructive influences that seem to so easily become the focus of our attention. So, I challenge you to counter the negative attitudes and emotions we all experience from within ourselves or from others with a conscious and regular practice of gratitude. It is a priceless gift to both keep and give away. REFERENCES Froh, J. J., Sefick, W. J., & Emmons, R. A. (2008). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of School Psychology, 46, 213233. Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2010). Gratitude and well being: The benefits of appreciation. Psychiatry, 7(11), 18-22. Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., & Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 66, 43-48. Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., & Maltby, J. (2009). Gratitude predicts psychological well-being above the big five facets. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(4), 443-447.
November/December 2016
517