Angela Scanlon: ‘Gratitude puts things in perspective, even when everything feels uncontrollable’

For several weeks now, Angela Scanlon has been sharing three things she’s grateful for at regular intervals on her Instagram. One day it was comfy socks, FaceTime, and her neighbour’s cheese pastries. The next it was homemade chips, chatting with a friend in Madrid, and sunlight on her kitchen wall.

When I speak to her, living room to living room in the midst of national lockdown, it’s the lozenges in her bag, a decadent breakfast, and the feel of fresh sheets. “I really like the micro ones,” says Angela, “you’re supposed to be thankful for these monumental, life-changing moments, but the truth is, the small moments are what life is all about.”

We’re discussing her podcast ‘Thanks A Million’, now entering its second series, a positivity pod picking the brains of the good, the great, and the grateful, to find out what they’re thankful for in their everyday lives.

For Angela, gratitude is not a nod to services rendered, but a fundamental tool of wellbeing. She used to write a column about trying out traditional therapies – “gong baths, singing bowls, you name it” – and found that simple, everyday gratitude was the self-care catch-all she kept coming back to.

Its exact anatomy is probably one for the psychologists, but Scanlon finds that gratitude puts things in perspective. “It’s about focusing on what you do have rather than what you don’t – whether in a journal, in your head, or by writing down three things. It allows people to feel fulfilled, even when the things around them are uncontrollable.”

It’s powerful partly because it’s universal. “I found myself recommending it to friends and family,” says Angela, “I totally buy into meditation, mindfulness, yoga and so on, but they’re quite alien, and I don’t think my dad is going to whip out a yoga mat and suddenly start doing salutations.

“I have friends who don’t believe in the ‘hippy dippy approach’ as they call it, but they’ll happily take out their phones and write down three things they’re grateful for during the day.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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