Today, Evan our resident mental health and addiction therapist answers a question he was asked by a fellow Cadre member around the time of Thanksgiving. On the spur of the moment Evan made a video breaking down what gratitude means to him personally and as. professional working with addiction and mental health clients.
A therapist says gratitude is akin to perspective. Having perspective is like getting outside of my own world. When we are in a state of gratitude, it's really hard to be depressed or feel depressed. Find a few minutes and see if you could find a little perspective.
So someone recently asked me, what does gratitude mean to me? And I was blown away because I thought, this is such a great question. We never really talk about it. Now, when it comes to gratitude, I mean, I think we all have an idea of what that is. We got Thanksgiving come up. So thinking about what are the things in my life that I appreciate? But for me, and I believe all that, but for me, you know, as a therapist and someone who tries to practice this in my day to day life, I always think of gratitude akin more to perspective.
Having perspective is, I think it's like in a way, kind of like empathy, right? So I'm thinking about the world outside of myself, right? It's so easy to get hyper focused on my day to day, on the things that I have to do. What is my life? What does it look like? What are my responsibilities? What are the things I struggle with? What are my hardships? And it's easy to get hyper focused on that because it's like we're in survival mode, a lot of us. So having gratitude, having perspective is like getting outside of my own world.
It's looking at what do other people's lives look like? Because like when we're climbing the mountain, so to speak, of life, it's like there's always going to be people we perceive to be above us and maybe people who have it a little more difficult. And a lot of times it's so easy. We are, I don't know if we're programmed to focus on for evolutionary reasons, but who is ahead of us and comparing ourselves to who we perceive. And it's not always true, but who we perceive to be have more than us in life.
And it's easy. It's like a recipe for misery. To be constantly thinking about what we don't have and not at least taking some time to look back to appreciate what we do have. Because when we are in a state of gratitude, it's really hard to be depressed or feel, at least in that, in that slight moment. So as much as I can, I try to take a few moments, whether it's before bed, to think about all the things I do have to be grateful. And when I do that, I find that it helps. And when I do this exercise and practice with clients, they tend to find it helpful too.
So I challenge you today. Find a few minutes and see if you could find a little perspective. Thanks.
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