One of the things that makes anxiety and depression so insidious is how it refocuses our minds on things that drag us down. If you talk to someone who is severely anxious or depressed, chances are that there are some legitimate concerns and losses underneath the fear and sadness. The problem isn’t acknowledging these things, but giving them too much power. To counteract that, gratitude is powerful.
In churches, gratitude frequently comes up as something that’s good for your relationship with God. It is, of course, and God is pleased to hear us thank Him for what He has done for us. In Christian circles, though, I think we often miss the value gratitude has even apart from the God we address. I have relatives who are atheists and practice gratitude, much to their benefit. It’s something the Bible teaches not just because God likes it, but because God made humans and knows it’s something that will help us. When we take the time to list out things we’re grateful for, it pulls us out of our focus on the negative. Even if all you can summon yourself to be grateful for is the fact that things could be even worse, acknowledging that fact alone tells your brain that you are not in the most unbearable situation possible. That is a cognitive distortion called “catastrophizing.” Cognitive distortions are things which, like fun house mirrors, take the facts of our reality and skew them in ways that make us miserable. I could easily run a series in this blog on all the known cognitive distortions, but for the moment, it’s helpful for you to be aware that they exist, and that gratitude is one of the things that helps correct for them. There is an extensive form of therapy that focuses on cognitive distortions called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It’s a very effective form of therapy that directly attacks distorted thoughts. However, without the supervision of a caring therapist, it can be dangerous to do that. By paying too much attention to your negative thoughts to attack them head on, it can sometimes feed them and make them worse by giving them too much attention. The beauty of gratitude is that it helps the distorted thoughts recede without paying direct attention to them. Rather than engaging with the thought, “The COVID numbers are up and I’ll contract it any day now!” (which could lead you down the rabbit trail of doomscrolling for more bad news to see if you’re right), thanking God for your health recalibrates where you put your attention. Without ignoring or disconnecting from the realities behind that panicky thought, gratitude can help you shift your focus to what is going well, what is helping the situation, and how God has or can bless you despite (or even because of) the chaos. I am in the practice of thanking God for five things each morning, and writing them down in my journal. I have a personal rule that I can’t thank Him for the same thing two days in a row (which could run the risk of reducing the exercise to routine meaninglessness). Some days, it’s easy, and I dash off seven or so items like an overachiever. The days in which the exercise helps me most, though, are the ones in which I struggle to think of five. Those are the days when I most need the refocusing power of gratitude to face the day. For example, this year I had to take my husband to the ER the night before my birthday, and he was admitted to the hospital. I was up half the night and slept poorly, waking up on my birthday with zero energy and concentration. I thanked God for catching his illness early, for my birthday, for my free birthday Starbucks drink (helping with the sleep deprivation), for my ordination date being set (that happened a few hours before the ER visit), and for my parents reaching out to me over the difficult night. All of this put me in a frame of mind to have a decent day where it could have been truly miserable. As you face the joys and struggles of the week--perhaps the beauty of the Thanksgiving holiday paired with the frustration of figuring out how to celebrate it without spreading COVID--look for things to be grateful for. By throwing your attention onto those things, the frustrations, sadness, and fears will gradually move into proper balance. Happy Thanksgiving!
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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