Does feeling grateful help at all?

[white knight]

I have known Alf for 12 years. We shared a hobby together. He had been single till 53yo then married an much older lady. My wife and I were outside a cafe enjoying a coffee with our pup at our heels when I saw him and asked him to join us.

Alf looked no different to the 100's of times I'd seen him, with his jovial smile and persona. A few minutes into our conversations I asked "and how is ..(his wife) going" He burst into tears so quick. "she died 8 months ago". You know what its like when you try to comfort someone that you know anything you do cant make any effect. Grief is a tough act to recover from.

So after a long chat and then changing the subject we left Alf to go about his business  I held my wife's hand tighter than usual as we walked along the shops. Thought to myself...gee I'm lucky. Sure I have these up and down mental struggles but I have so much to be grateful for. I also have a backbone of positivity that props me up life a lifebuoy that will never sink regardless of the low lows I have. As Churchill said "we will never surrender" and I wont.

And I recall following my first marriage breakup, the pain of moving to part time dad from full time...saying to myself daily "well I know some dads never see their kids at all" so be grateful. Be happy with what you have Tony, not miserable for what you dont have or what you dream for.

What of others? I watched a TV show last Monday night of a Cattleman. He'd experienced a helicopter crash that broke his neck. Now a quadriplegic he still was a cattleman albeit a modified one. He carried on his life. Can you imagine his gratitude of still being able to breath, experience his love of his work and be an inspiration?

Unfortunately for people with mental illness  a lot of our problems are caused by chemical imbalance, hereditary disorders, accidents or environment effects, some of which is not controlled no matter how positive you are or grateful you be. But I'd argue that any minute change in thinking to be more positive, any spark of gratitude for your life's circumstances would be of some benefit, perhaps not evident, perhaps not straight away but like a rolling stone carries no moss an active positive mind carries less negative thoughts.

Being grateful is one of many positive abilities we can keep exercising in our mind.....to help our recovery.

[BKYTH]

A Zen master once posed the question "What 'now ' is missing?" What in this present moment is missing - I think if I were to start a list I would spend the rest of my days adding to it which doesn't seem to be the best thing to do.                              The easy answer given by the student of the masters question is "Nothing" That the moment is perfect in itself and lacks nothing, and as an answer it is, as it should be - But knowing the answer and living it are very different things.                            If we carry the past with us we will always be in a state of regret and suffering while if we, with conviction and courage, learn to leave behind that which we cannot change we can be truly be in this moment with all its wonder and possabilities. Philip.

[BeeGee]

Honestly?  No.  I have to be brutally honest and say that feeling grateful, while important, does not help me at all in the sense of lessening my depressive symptoms.  I wish it did.  I agree that recognising all that is good in our lives and being thankful for it is decent, centring, and good - but I don't feel any better for it.  What does that mean?  Stuffed if I know.  I've chased my tail on that one and got nowhere.

Jess, I loved your post about "Midnight in Paris" - this scenario resonated for me, although for me it's quite the opposite.  Rather than seeking to live in the glory days of the past, I'm beset by automatic remembrances of failure, guilt, bad decisions, etc.  I don't want them, I don't choose to go there, but I don't seem to be able to discard this baggage.  So far I'm not finding my CBT strategies helpful... they seem too fake, too much like Pollyanna-ism.

Anyway... sorry to be a wet blanket.  I just don't find gratefulness to be (or form part of) an antidote to what ails me, but I persevere with it anyway to try to avoid being too self-pitying or self-obsessed.  It seems right to be thankful for those things in and of itself regardless of whether that contributes to any kind of self help for me.

[white knight]

Hi BeeGee, hello again

Just the thing I wanted. Another assessment of whether feeling grateful helped. For some time I've tried stretching my gratefulness to se if it would have a positive effect and to be honest if we could measure such effect it would show up much.

Thanks again.  Tony WK

[JessF]

Hello Bee Gee,

You know I do understand what you mean, because I'm going through something similar at the moment. Old feelings and failures (perceived or otherwise) from my past have been stirred up by something new that I'm involved with and I am ruminating a lot on it. I wouldn't want for one second to go back to the past, but I feel as if that past is being dragged back into my present. 

I am doing my best to step back and recognise that these are not 'live' feelings but triggers, echoes, and that it is most likely that my reads on people in this new situation are completely wrong. But it is hard, and I am feeling more emotionally volatile than i have for a while.  But I will just keep pushing through.

Distraction is my friend today.

[BeeGee]

Hmmm, I hear you Jess.  Those triggers that bring the past into the present can pop up out of nowhere, can't they?!

I'm interested to hear that you are assessing your perceptions of others, and considering whether you are misreading them.  My natural inclination is to give others the benefit of the doubt - not through any conscious decision or intentional process, but through some innate recognition that I can't know what is going on in someone else's head/heart/life that has led them to that moment.  On the other hand, I know exactly what has gone on in my own life, and judge myself very harshly when I don't meet my own expectations.  This is endless fodder for guilt, self recrimination and self loathing.  Clearly there is something broken in this self-assessment process, but I haven't yet learnt the key to escaping or dismantling this destructive cycle.

I can see that emotional disengagement has been for me a survival mechanism to escape from the pain of this... unfortunately it's only a diversionary tactic that does not stop the onslaught.

I don't think my current psychologist really gets this about me.  I feel like he is working from a standardised CBT script rather than actually addressing my issues.  Time for a change I think.

[JessF]

Have you ever done any ACT work? My logical mind appreciates the skills of CBT, but sometimes I think it can be used in the wrong way, to try and force your mind into thinking in a different way - almost like a more sophisticated version of someone saying "cheer up it might never happen".

ACT is much more about accepting that you have the feelings or thoughts, and not placing any kind of moral or truth value on them and working from there.

[white knight]

Hi Everyone

Re: "cheer up it might never happen".  the same as a quote on Facebook yesterday "not feeling grateful? feel your pulse"

I'm sure that will end all my troubles. I realise now at the point of this discussion that we cant appreciate everything all the time. It's fairy world stuff. Running through the fields loving and appreciating the daisies, the sky, the air and the ground. Patting the rabbits and watching the koalas.

Yes, we can immerse ourselves into this activity but none of those actions will wash the dishes, but the food, earn the money for the food and mow the lawns. So being grateful is a part time activity to help one lift your mood if you are taking life for granted. With mental illness how many take life for granted? Not many I'd suggest. Most people are not arrogant about life.

Tony WK

[JessF]

You're right Tony, but like so many things we often get trapped into 'all or nothing' thinking. It goes right through our society, from our everyday personal problems right through to our politicians debating important issues. We must choose either this or that, do this or that bad thing will happen.

It's absurd to think that we would all be happier if we spent our days running round and smelling the daisies, but of all the moments in a day that rush by us, surely we can grab a few to just be in and appreciate. We're supposed to put in 30 minutes of exercise a day to stay physically healthy, imagine if we did the same just to be mindful and in the moment?

[White_Rose]

Just found this thread. It's fascinating, to quote a well known alien.

I think the point of mindfulness is that you are always being mindful. It doesn't mean sitting and contemplating your navel but being awake to all that you are and all that your are doing in that moment.

You mindfully wash the dishes, go for a walk, hang out the washing, hug the children and kiss your spouse. That is you are concentrating only on what you are doing NOW.

Meditation on the other hand is a process where you stop everything and, usually, sit, allowing your mind to empty to connect with what ever divinity/life force/spiritual being/universal karma you believe in or trust.

So while you are mindful of the present moment you cannot be thinking about other horrible stuff or what happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow. Being grateful then becomes the default position.

So without wanting to make this a religious debate, the lilies of the field that "toil not, neither do they spin" that Jesus referred to, are clothed better than Solomon because they, the lilies, were concentrating on their job of growing, not on all the other things they could be doing.

They are being grateful for having soil to grow in and enough rain to drink. Not wanting to have the same shape petals as a daisy, to last as long or have as many flowers. So no John. No need to run through the fields in any way. Just do what comes next and do it by paying attention to what you are doing and how you are doing it. This is why actions such as mindfulness and mediation work. And also work in people with a mental illness.

I see your point about ACT Jess. Seeing that a colleague is talented, watching a great sunset, knowing you have a mental illness and accepting them all without judgement or distress. These things are and go with being mindful about our everyday activities because these are the things we do and must be done to the best of our abilities, like the lilies.

Rosslyn

[BeeGee]

No, I haven't done any ACT stuff Jess - read a little about it but that's it.  My wife is doing it atm and finding it very helpful, and some of the stuff she's talked about with me seems to make a lot of sense.

I got a new MHP from my GP last week and a referral to a different psychologist; I might ask her what she thinks about it after we get through the introductions.

I will certainly be grateful once these wretched withdrawal symptoms subside... it's been a week now and I'm still waiting... I feel like buying some billboard space and warning people never to try this med.  Now I discover the pages and pages of forum posts (not here of course) of people suffering these symptoms for extended periods after discontinuing this poison.  It's a shame my doctor didn't think to mention it before we started.  But I digress...