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Let us recap what we have been talking about over the last few days: while gratitude is one of keys to mental and emotional wellbeing, it is important to recognize what it is not.

Let us reiterate what gratitude does not mean:
It does not mean you hide your true feelings or pretend to be grateful when you do not feel it
It is not about telling others to be grateful, especially when they are experiencing depression
It is not about telling others to be grateful, especially when they are experiencing abuse
It is not about telling others to be grateful, especially when they are experiencing unfair treatment
It is not about accepting poor behaviour in relationships, especially when that behaviour is abusive
It is not about not speaking up for your needs and desires in a relationship
It is not about not working to build a relationship that works for both
It is not about accepting the status quo when that status quo includes injustice towards vulnerable populations

Now that we have a balanced view...

Survivors of abuse and trauma have a complicated relationship with gratitude. When a person is trying to work through formerly repressed feelings about abuse or trauma in the past, gratitude can become a stumbling block.

One reason for this is that on the surface, survivors of abuse often do not have a problem with gratitude. They may comply and do gratitude practices but it may not be the path to healing that they are looking for and need.

Survivors of abuse and trauma often have a problem with feeling their feelings. Abuse can really mess up a person’s trust in themselves. They do not have confidence that their feelings are warranted, accepted or okay. On top of that, gratitude may have been used by abusers to further confuse the victim and destabilize their sense of reality.

Once the abuse is behind them and they are on a healing journey, they are often recommended to initiate a practice of gratitude by well meaning friends or counsellors. Sometimes, these suggestions can...

Over the last little while, we spent considerable time talking about how practicing gratitude in relationships will improve relationship quality and satisfaction.

We now need to address an important caveat about gratitude in relationships.

All the research that we have mentioned is focused on understanding factors that promote the maintenance of healthy relationships or turning around relationships that have the potential of being healthy.

There are, however, some relationships that will not be helped by gratitude.

If there is physical or emotional abuse in a relationship, telling the victim to look for the positive or to feel grateful may further victimize the person.

It is true that no one is entirely evil. The reality is that even abusers may have some aspects of their personality which are positive. A person who is aggressive or violent may be materially generous (a "good provider"). A serial adulterer may be charming, hardworking or a good parent. Someone addicted to substances...

We are discussing how forcing gratitude on others may not work and may cause people to be the opposite of grateful. It especially may not work with someone who is experiencing moderate to severe depression.

Research suggests that gratitude exercises may trigger the "inner critic" in individuals experiencing anxiety or depression.

When a person is experiencing depression, by definition they are not able to look on the bright side or find things that are positive in their lives. And being asked to find things that are positive may make their depressive feelings worse.

In a recent study, completed in 2017, the researchers found that individuals with symptoms of depression sometimes felt indebted, guilty, or "like a failure" when they were not able to find something to be grateful for. In other words, being told to practice gratitude worsened their emotional state and added other negative emotions to those they were already feeling.

Others in the study who were able to find something to...

In this day and age, it is easier than ever to compare our lives to others. While comparison may indeed be the thief of joy (as expressed by Theodore Roosevelt) ceasing comparison is much easier said than done.

When we are comparing our lives to others, we sometimes get told to remind ourselves how lucky we are compared to others. This is true, of course. Despite whatever challenges we may be experiencing at the moment, if we have a roof over our heads, food to eat and security of body and soul, we are indeed more blessed than many.

The trouble is that when others tell us how lucky weare it can actually trigger social comparisons. Instead of comparing ourselves to those who have it worse, as they suggest, our mind starts comparing our situation to others who have it better than us.

And of course, we can find PLENTY of "evidence" on social media for those who appear to have it much better than us. Their lives, at least the part of their lives that are presented on social media,...

One of the great challenges of the modern mindset is that we are focused on what we believe we ‘deserve’. We are looking out for our own best interests and making sure that we are not taken advantage of. That we get what we think we are ‘owed’.

Now this kind of thinking may work in the stock market, but it doesn’t really work that well in a marriage.

In relationships, being aware of our rights and noticing how the other is falling short in delivering those rights is guaranteed to make us unhappy. Despite this, social media is always reminding us that we need to find someone who will love and appreciate us for who we are. That we ‘deserve’ this love.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it puts someone else in charge of our happiness. Only when they deliver on our expectations can we be at peace.

The mindset of gratitude on the other hand, is relational. It shifts our focus from ourselves to one another. Gratitude invites us to...

Yesterday we talked about how gratitude helps when you mess up communication during conflict.

Today let us look at some evidence that practicing gratitude can actually help improve communication overall.

A study by Amie Gordon, a psychologist from U.C. Berkeley, has found that "highly appreciative" couples tend to communicate much better in relationships.

While talking to each other, these spouses leaned in, made eye contact, and responded thoughtfully to what the other was saying. In other words, they made it clear that they were listening to and digesting what their spouse said, showing that they valued their spouse’s opinion. Appreciative couples were also more likely to use touch and physical encouragement such as a pat or hand holding to encourage the other to speak more and express themselves.

From the above it appears that appreciating and valuing your spouse includes valuing what they have to say and it makes sense that this mindset would greatly improve your listening...

Experts try to explain the link between gratitude & appreciation and marriage success by suggesting that gratitude can help relationships thrive by promoting a cycle of generosity. When one person is grateful, it is likely to prompt both spouses to think and act in ways that help them signal gratitude to each other and promote a desire to hold onto their relationships.

Here is how this cycle works:

When you feel more grateful –> You want to hold onto your relationship
Moments of gratitude help people recognize the value in their partners and a valuable partner is a partner worth holding onto. A number of studies have found that on days when people feel more appreciative of their partners than typical, they also report increased feelings of commitment to their relationships. And the benefits of gratitude are not just in daily life – the more grateful people are at the beginning of the study, the more committed they are nine months later. So it seems that feelings of...

We have been hinting at how gratitude improves many markers of mental and emotional wellbeing. In everyday language, wellbeing markers simply mean how happy and satisfied you are.

Did you know that a very short practice of gratitude can boost our happiness levels by 25%?!

The very first study by Robert Emmons was very simple:

Three groups of people were asked to write a short journal entry once a week for ten weeks.

The groups had to briefly describe in a single sentence:

(Group 1) Gratitude condition: five things they were grateful for
(Group 2) Hassles condition: five things they were displeased about
(Group 3) Events condition: five neutral events

Here is how Emmons reported the results:

"What did the first study reveal? At the end of the ten weeks, we examined differences between the three groups on all of the well-being outcomes that we measured at the outset of the study. Participants in the gratitude condition felt better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic...

As we discussed yesterday, practicing gratitude can counteract our tendency to give up on goals if we do not get instant gratification.

Another very interesting study has looked into how the patience and perseverance developed by gratitude plays out in financial decision making.

David DeSteno of Northwestern University led a study where participants were asked to recall an event that made them feel grateful, happy, or neutral. After writing about this event, they reported their mood and then made a series of financial decisions.

The participants in the study had an interesting choice at the end of the session: they could either take a cash reward right there or they could choose to receive a larger amount of money in the mail at a later date.

The researchers found that those who had experienced gratitude were much more likely to wait for the bigger payout.

DeSteno reported that the "financial patience" of participants in the study had increased by about 12 percent just by recalling...