Blog Posts

Hey Friends, welcome back.  Going into the holiday season, I want to talk about the power of having a gratitude practice and benefits it can have.  I hear a lot of people find the holidays stressful.  Whether it is due to financial stressors trying to prepare for Christmas, the colder weather, the busy season with lots of parties and plans, or loneliness; it is easy to get caught up in the stress and overwhelm of this time of year.  

Gratitude involves showing appreciation in life that are meaningful to you.  Gratitude helps me keep perspective on what is most important to me.  Focusing on gratitude can help refocus on what you have and what is going well instead of what you lack and the negatives.  Expressing gratitude is associated with mental and physical benefits.  Studies have shown feeling thankful more can improve sleep, mood, and immunity.  It can help with depression, anxiety, stress, and chronic pain to practice feeling thankful more often.  If we spend most of are time focusing on the negative, stressors, and what is going wrong we are more likely to not sleep as well, neglect our needs, and get sick more often. 

Having a daily gratitude practice has helped me increase my awareness of things that go well each day, things that I appreciate each day, and helps me spend less time being negative.  It can help train the brain to notice and appreciate the good more.  There are several ways to have a daily gratitude practice and I am going to suggest a few.  

1. Keep a gratitude journal.  My favorite journals are the ones that have prompts.  Gratitude journals can include writing down 3 daily gratitudes and can also include other prompts such as what you have learned or gained from starting a gratitude practice.

2. Share your gratitudes.  I have found it helpful to share things I am grateful about each day with someone in my inner circle.  It also helps the other person to practice gratitudes as well by mutual sharing.  This can increase bonds and help both people feel more thankful.

3. Practice mindfulness.  This allows us to take time to slow down and connect with what is around us.  Exploring the five senses while even doing a brief 5 minute mindfulness practice each day can help increase awareness of what is going on around you and spend time enjoying it.  For example, paying attention to how a favorite treat tastes, how the sun feels on your face, or going on a walk and noticing the sights and sounds you hear.

4. Write notes of appreciation.  This can include writing thank you notes to people in your life.  This can include leaving notes for loved ones with words of encouragements, thinking of you, or how they add to your life.  This can also include writing letters as a way to process more about how you feel about another person.

5. Reframe past events. Sometimes it can be difficult to focus on the positive and what is going well in life when we spend a lot of time thinking about the past, look about at the past with regret, or haven’t been able to work through past trauma that makes it difficult to feel thankful.  Things to consider when reflecting on the past and looking to reframe past events is by looking at them differently.  For example, how did those experiences contribute to your growth?  Did they make you more assertive or compassionate?  Did you learn a skill or boundaries because of them? By finding lessons in tough experiences it can help increase gratitude and look back at experiences with less negativity or regret.  

Sometimes reframing past events requires some extra help like in therapy.  One therapy practice that we provide, EMDR, has been shown to be helpful to reprocess past events and trauma.  If you need some extra help to reframe past events, we are here to help. If starting a gratitude practice, be patient with yourself.  It can take time to see benefit in any change that is made.  

I wish everyone a happy and healing holiday season.  Until next time.

Emilie Barragan, LCSW 

Therapeuo Health – “Tackling Physical and Emotional Pain”