We often hear advice such as, “Be thankful.” Or, “You should think of all the things to be grateful for.” “Just think how lucky you are.” The truth is, feeling thankful and thinking about it are two separate activities. We can be asked to think about it and we can choose to do so, but feeling grateful just comes over us.

Thinking about gratitude is intellectual—a mental exercise that is important to practice. It can help get us out of a bad mood and elevate our attitudes. When we think about gratitude, we choose to be grateful. When we choose to be grateful, we take a positive approach to living.

On the other hand, feeling thankful comes from the heart. It’s not something we do by choice. We simply give in to that warm, wonderful feeling. We may even shed a tear of joy or relief. Feeling thankful is a state of being that comes from within. External forces may enhance it or decrease it, but the source is in our hearts, or in some cases, our stomachs. We talk about the flutter in our hearts when in love and the knot in our stomachs when in fear. Neither is something we choose; they are feelings that overwhelm us. That is how feeling thankful works, too.

During the Thanksgiving season, we consciously gather with friends and family to share our communal gratitude. We feel thankful for friends and family year-round, but the holidays seem to be designated times for verbalizing or showing our gratitude by actions. Not everyone celebrates in November and the timing really doesn’t matter. What matters is to set time aside to show those we are thankful for that we are grateful to have them in our lives.

At Nikken, this Thanksgiving we want to express how thankful we are to the members of our Global Wellness Community. We are thankful for your community spirit, your steadfastness, your loyalty and trust. At Nikken, we feel gratitude daily, weekly, monthly and as the years go by, we are humbled and awed that together we continue on our adventurous journey as Humans Being More. We continue pursuing Active Wellness and sharing an energetic lifestyle. We share how to build a Wellness Home with everyone we care about. From the heart, we thank you for being part of our community and helping it to grow. On Thanksgiving and every day, we give thanks to you.