Every year at this time I share how Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and then reflect on some aspect of gratitude (the NY GIants had a bye this week-couldn’t lose!).  But with all of the craziness of 2020 and the layers of losses we’re experiencing, it seems a little preachy right now to be encouraging people to make gratitude lists and to look on the bright side of what you do have.  But ironically, it is through the pain of loss that we can really experience gratitude.  It can, indeed, be a silver lining and a way of finding hope and comfort in dark times.

Both my clinical sense and the research I’ve read strongly suggest that a deeply experienced grief process often leads to a heightened sense of appreciation both for what was lost and for what is left behind. In one study of people who had lost a parent, 79% said that the loss had increased their sense of appreciation for life and relationships.  In addition, these people had lower levels of depression and a greater level of well being.  And just as I have experienced in the 25 years since my sister died, there are times of deep melancholy even now.  But along the way in being cracked open there is also a sense of deeper connection to how precious and fleeting life is and for what truly matters.

With this pandemic leading to so many deaths as well as the loss of experiences and opportunities, I think if we can allow ourselves to feel the grief, it is possible that if can bring a greater appreciation for the times when we can be together, when we can hug one another freely, and can travel and wander without hesitation.  Grief is a very complex process and it comes in waves as it unfolds a bundle of feelings including memories for what was, dreams for what could be, and regrets for what can never be. In allowing ourselves to acknowledge these layers, we can more deeply connect to what’s important to us.

I am very moved by a Facebook page started by a woman, Kelly Buckley,  who was struggling after the death of her son, Stephen  She wondered how she would go on and how she could help her other son.  She started with a small  step of finding one tiny thing to be grateful for each day. Let me share with you her words as my gift to you this Thanksgiving:  As the days, weeks and months passed, our list of tiny blessings continued to grow, bringing flickers of light and hope along with it. We found we couldn’t just limit it to one little thing any longer. Blessings were sprouting up all over the place. Butterflies, belly laughs with snorts included, fresh strawberries, naps, a letter from Stephen’s friend, birds, chats with my son or a moment of normalcy with my husband. It did not change the pain of the loss. But it did alleviate some of the suffering. I started to see that all these one little things were actually the big things that really gave meaning to my life. This path of gratitude was healing me, and tethering me to the present moment as I grieved. And in the present moment, I was okay.

Kelly refers to her Facebook group as Just One Little Thing and her members are “JOLTers.”  It began in 2011 and has over 120,000 members from over 50 countries speaking over 40 languages.

Please have a safe and festive holiday no matter where you are, who you are with, or how you celebrate.  Giving thanks does not require any other people to be present, a cooked turkey or pumpkin pie, or even a zoom account.  You just need an open heart.

While election results were being counted, a woman I work with in therapy remarked that it was “time to focus on my own problems again.”  Indeed, there does seem to be a collective exhale that we all need to take after such a long campaign and election process. But her comment got me thinking about what each of us considers our “own problems” and the relationship we hold between the personal and the political.  

For so many years I’ve been honored to hear the most intimate details of people’s personal problems as they engage with me as their therapist.   People come for help in taking personal responsibility for what is happening in their lives.  But often what is happening is beyond their control to fix and their problems reflect trends and commonalities, traumas and societal and institutional ills.  Because they can’t seem to get a foothold to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps,” they are left feeling that they did something wrong. For example, working at a health center many of the people seek our services after a health crisis.  They can’t work the way they used to and go through a series of cascading and devastating losses, including esteem and identity and the various manifestations of financial hardship, such as losing their home and the freedoms they once had when they had more resources.  In trying to cope with their new situation, they suddenly come into contact with a host of governmental agencies, including the disability system, low income housing, and possibly even food stamps.   Worn down and feeling dependent, these people often fall into depression and are vulnerable to addiction, given both physical and emotional pain and the loss of a sense of purpose.  This only fuels their identity as damaged people who have little to contribute and who feel disempowered from participating in the political process -the very process that creates the systems they now for the first time really understand.

I have mentioned in previous blogs the trend I’ve seen over the last 20 years of the majority of people seeking psychological services for depression shifting to the majority of people coming in for anxiety.  I have seen suicidal thinking in adolescents and children rise dramatically and the age at which it begins get lower and lower.  These are not individual problems, but reflect trends in society, perhaps related to the role of social media and the widening income gap that creates feelings of helplessness, stress, negative social comparison, and a sense of failure.   These cultural and political trends are reflected in the daily struggles of each and every one of us, yet we are but one person in a society that seems to be moving so rapidly in a direction we can’t seem to keep up with.

And the truth is, for the woman I saw this week who is ready to get back to her own problems, a change in President is most likely not going to make as much difference in her life as recognizing her own patterns and addressing her own choices in relationships and coping behavior.  Her day to day emotions will be far more affected by the moments of joy we can help her to find and the sense of calm she can achieve by quieting her inner critic with mindfulness. And maybe even medication is the answer, because sometimes we are so stuck, we no longer have the energy or capacity to cope. And yet, while I help people take control in the ways that seem most beneficial, I can’t help but sometimes feel I am enabling a society that is harming its people.  

There are reasons bigger than our personal responsibility that influence us.  Oppression, grief, trauma, and even good fortune are most often things we cannot control.  We often say in our therapy group Seeking Safety, for people who have experienced trauma, that while you are not responsible for your trauma, you can take responsibility for how you respond to it.  But then, who is responsible for the trauma?  

I believe unequivocally that we are responsible for our choices.  But I also believe we are responsible for each other.  And perhaps this is where the rubber meets the road for me, where the personal and the political intersect.  We all carry a responsibility for the society we live in that has the power to create or destroy opportunity, equality, and decency.  And for each of us in our roles as parent, friend, teacher, business owner, civil servant, or President, we need to ask ourselves how we each personally contribute and influence the maintenance of our society.  To ignore the larger trends and not speak out when justice is denied or compassion is lacking is self indulgent.  But it is also self indulgent to do nothing to empower ourselves, denying  our own inner strength and resourcefulness that can contribute to the greater good.  

A Presidential election offers an opportunity to exercise our democratic right to select a leader who represents what we want our society to be. We select a leader to enact the will of the people.  But we sometimes forget that this is a will we personally own every single day of our lives and in every interaction we have.  It’s not just an every four year right, but an everyday opportunity.

(Note: I have found throughout my career that non-profits have been tasked with picking up the pieces of society’s ills. But they rely on the generosity of people willing to do the hard work with little resources and the constant solicitaton of those willing to contribute. Yet they hold a lot of the pain and stress caused by governing that does not protect the vulnerabilty of many citizens).