By Marni Oldershaw, M.A
Thanksgiving is a time of year in which we are inundated with messaging to reflect on the things we are grateful for in our efforts to “give thanks”. Often it is challenging to identify things we are grateful for – and sometimes it seems almost impossible – which leads to feelings of guilt over what we “should” be grateful for…
In Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), a core concept is distress tolerance. One of the skills taught in DBT distress tolerance is comparison. In distress tolerance, the aim is for clients to improve on their ability to manage immediate emotional distress, whether actual or perceived. In comparison, clients are recommended to compare themselves to those less fortunate or to their past selves when they felt differently. In many instances this works, however, other times it may be a quick path to faulty thinking. By quickly comparing ourselves to others or to our past selves we often forget to add a very important thing: context. Without context, our comparisons to others can very easily backfire and turn into judgements of ourselves.
How do we foster gratitude without comparison and judgement?
- Stay present. Pay attention to how you are perceiving the world and be mindful of how gets in the way of your ability to be grateful.
- Start small. By staying present you begin to slow down and take notice of the things around you. Nothing is too small! Enjoyed the taste of your breakfast this morning? It was raining but you brought an umbrella or a car to wait in? You were the last one to catch the green light? Your friend remembered an important date for you? Gratitude can start anywhere.
- Like a ripple. The most important (and often hardest) part of practicing gratitude is simply getting started. Gratitude is like a rock being thrown in a body of water, it ripples its waves out no matter how big the first splash. Just. Throw. The. Rock. Once started, no matter how small, the domino effect leads you to more gratitude…Now you are no longer just grateful that your breakfast tasted good, you are also grateful for the fridge full of food and the jobs that help provide it. You not only have an umbrella or a car to keep you dry, but also a roof over your head when it is raining. Gratitude can be contagious within ourselves.
- Gratitude is contagious; tell others. Gratitude is also contagious among others. Tell your mom you are grateful she bought your favorite cereal. Tell your friend that it means a lot that they listen to things that are important to you. Sharing when we are grateful to others without expecting anything in return is a surefire way to put a gratitude rock in their hands. Chances are, we will get to feel their ripple.
- Practice makes grateful. Like most things that are good for us, being efficient at being grateful takes practice. Practice writing down (yes, physically writing it down) all the things you are grateful for in a journal on a daily basis. Having this record can serve as a starting point when stuck, a reminder when bored, or as a coping tool when we are upset. Like many therapies and DBT skills, by practicing when we are not upset or distressed gives us a long list of things to be grateful for that become easily accessible when we are upset or distressed.
Gratitude can be useful practice in addition to several DBT skills. When paired with mindfulness skills, gratitude can be a powerful method to tolerate distress in a self-soothing and mood-altering way!
Source: Linehan, MM (1993) Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, The Guilford Press, NY, NY.
Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-drop-photo-220213/