Are you feeling grateful?

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1:07Kimberley Wilson:I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a counselling psychologist and this is Complex. The podcast that makes sense of the information and misinformation that's out there around our psychology and mental health. So you can live more positively, calmly and hopefully with a bit more balance. In this episode, I'm exploring gratitude. And it's pretty simple, isn't it? When someone's nice to you or something good happens, and you can recognise it, that's gratitude. But this lovely, simple response can sometimes be a bit more complicated. Something nice happens, and we don't feel grateful, and we end up feeling bad about it and about ourselves.

1:54Kimberley Wilson:What's wrong with me? Why aren't I feeling grateful? Well, the answer, my friends, lies in authenticity and that's what we want to explore today.

2:08Kimberley Wilson:And it's Christmas Eve and I'm thinking this is the perfect time to dig deep into solid, honest, real gratitude. So let me be your guide through the opaque mists of misinformation to the twinkly lights of understanding.

2:30Kimberley Wilson:Alrighty, let's crack on. Today, my guest is health psychologist Joanna Rodriguez. So I'm very, very glad that you're here today to unearth gratitude with me. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, please? Yes, I'm a health psychologist and a cognitive psychotherapist. These days I work mostly in private practice, working with clients. I used to work at the University of Surrey as Director of Studies on their programme, teaching psychological interventions and also positive psychology. And what is positive psychology? Positive psychology is the scientific study of human wellness. So traditionally a lot of psychology is about human illness, suffering, whereas positive psychology is about what helps people to flourish so what makes people resilient what are our strengths and how do we encourage human beings to be well which is such a lovely perspective to be coming from yeah that we take a fundamentally positive position you know we can build well-being and strengths yeah and what's your personal relationship with gratitude i think I think I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with gratitude because there's a lot of misconceptions about what gratitude is.

3:47And personally, I think in the past, having experienced difficulties and working with clinicians who've experienced a lot of difficulties, the concept of gratitude has been quite challenging. But also I love gratitude. And when people understand it correctly, I think as a concept, it can be extremely helpful to human well-being.

4:08Kimberley Wilson:Yeah, I feel like I have the same kind of relationship to it because I think there's a way in which we have the psychological understanding, but the way that it's expressed and portrayed is quite superficial and it can be almost sometimes punishing. And I don't know if you've seen it, but there are lots of posts at the moment on socials talking about I'm rich because and they're these kind of demonstrations of gratitude. And it's not really clear to me whether they are genuine or just another kind of branding, a bit of showing off. And what I want is for our hearts and minds to be full of genuine gratitude.

4:42Kimberley Wilson:And that's the kind of thing we want to get into in today's episode. So I think we should just get into it.

4:51Kimberley Wilson:Now, for everyone listening, gratitude comes in two flavours. There's the emotional state when someone or something outside of you creates a good outcome. You notice it, you feel grateful for it in the moment. and then there's the personality trait which is more innate more consistent you're someone who regularly notices good things values small pleasures and is thankful for them and not surprisingly both state and trait gratitude are linked to well-being but the research shows that people who express trait gratitude are more likely to have stronger social relationships more robust physical and mental health, and even better sleep.

5:37Kimberley Wilson:But of course, it's not that straightforward. It never is. Because when we're supposed to be grateful, but we don't feel it, that kind of mental discombobulation occurs. And that has a negative impact on us. So it's a bit complicated, isn't it, Jo? How do we begin to disentangle these thoughts about gratitude? I think it comes down to understanding what it actually is. And I think it's recognizing that gratitude isn't just about thinking that we should appreciate what we have. There's a lot more to it. And there are factors that influence our ability to be grateful. And I think when we understand that and recognize that, then that actually helps us to feel the authentic gratitude.

6:29So what is the definition of gratitude? Well gratitude is our ability to feel appreciation for something and recognize that it's come from something outside of ourselves. So for example it's our ability to notice when people perhaps are doing things for us but it's not just the act of them doing it it's recognizing why they're doing that, what that means for us and how that makes us feel. Thank you.

6:56Kimberley Wilson:That's gorgeous because I have a story about gratitude that's come into us. It's from someone called Tom. That's not his real name. But I think it really touches on these aspects of gratitude that you just described. So what I'm going to do is read out Tom's story. Okay. And then I would love to hear what you think of it. Okay. Tom says, I turned 21 a few years ago and I still can't get over the present my best friends bought for me my parents threw a party for me but I invited my best mates for a meal first I was paying for everything everyone's food everything which was a big deal for me at the end of the dinner they handed me an envelope with a voucher for a surf lesson I realized that they'd clubbed together to buy it but also I don't even like surfing.

7:46Kimberley Wilson:I was so pissed off and I couldn't cover it up. I felt really embarrassed since then because I should have been grateful. They were getting me something. I just felt like a swelped brat. Disgust. Well I think that's the thing about gratitude isn't it is that we feel we should be grateful when we're given something but sometimes we just don't feel it and in that instance the reason that he didn't feel it wasn't the gift it was the recognition that I don't like surfing and they haven't recognized that I don't like surfing or they haven't remembered that it's the sentiment isn't it yeah that there's something really important about gift giving yeah and receiving yeah but there's a message there's a communication in a gift and it feels like what it signified to Tom was either you don't really know me or you're not paying enough attention and that that's the thing that kind of hurts.

8:40Absolutely and then often in social situations the pressure to feel grateful can be really difficult when you have that internal conflict of feeling quite upset about something but also noticing how you're feeling about that and recognizing that you don't feel good and that often combines to bring a lot of anger, upset, hurt which is what he described.

9:02Kimberley Wilson:And even embarrassment in Tom's case, I feel embarrassed, I feel spoiled, I should have been responding in a different way. And so there's that kind of pressure of the social expectation, the rules of gratitude versus the instinctive response and the real feelings. And I guess the conflict and the disconnect between those two. and that often comes down to the way we were raised and the way that gratitude is taught when we're little because gratitude is often taught as a behavior that we should say thank you and we should feel pleased about it but often when we're little we don't have the emotional capacity to be able to do that that is perfect because what I really want us to think about is the difference between this kind of forced polite demonstrations of gratitude and that authentic experience.

9:58Kimberley Wilson:So yeah, let's get into that complexity.

10:04So if we were thinking about its key characteristics, how do we know when we're feeling solid, honest, real gratitude? When we're feeling gratitude, it's really a deep sense of appreciation and a recognition and acknowledgement that something outside of me has been given to me that has really helped me to recognise my value, my worth.

10:34Kimberley Wilson:That's really lovely. So it's a communication about your value from the outside world. And I guess if we take it back to Tom, the thing that was getting caught was, what is this gift which has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with any interest that I have expressed to you, my best friends. What is that communicating to me about my value to you? Exactly. And when we understand that and recognise that, then it helps us to see that we're not being ungrateful. We're just not feeling that in that moment. I feel a lot of compassion for Tom in this moment. So what is happening in our brains and bodies when we're feeling grateful or when we're having that experience, as you say, of value?

11:16Kimberley Wilson:you? Well authentic gratitude does light up certain areas in our brain those associated with reward sometimes oxytocin the areas associated with social reciprocity because gratitude is actually a social thing the areas of our brain acknowledge that recognise that and help to regulate our nervous system and bring us into a state of feeling safe. and perhaps that feeling of safety allows your kind of nervous system to calm down and feel restful yeah you touched on where gratitude comes from the way that we're taught to say thank you and feel grateful if we do take that back to childhood I'm imagining for example you know it's Christmas time and a little girl gets a gift of a doll from grandma but actually she never plays with cars or in the mud and because children haven't built up those kind of social skills that she's upset and she shows it and then grandma's upset and then we have a whole situation what is happening in this scene the child is recognizing that she just doesn't like the toy she doesn't like dolls and you know it's very difficult for children to regulate their emotions so the child in that moment is not being ungrateful she's recognizing grandma's bought me something that I don't like and I'm upset about that.

12:40Grandma then getting upset might then make the child feel like they're being ungrateful because when we're growing up, gratitude's actually taught to us as more of social constructs. So we need to say thank you when we're given a gift. But actually for children, they just learn the behaviour of saying thank you without actually feeling gratitude.

13:02Kimberley Wilson:There's a real difference between saying thank you and feeling the appreciation or even knowing the meaning of the gift. Yeah, or that grandma might have taken lots of time to pick that out and thought that she would really like it. All of those things. What often then happens is parents feel maybe slightly embarrassed at the child's behaviour or recognise that grandma's upset and thinks, oh gosh, how do we make grandma feel okay? And often what happens, maybe accidentally, is that the child's feelings get ignored and pushed aside to meet the needs of the adult. But what that teaches the child is how I felt in that moment wasn't okay.

13:38And children just want to make adults happy. So therefore, what I need to do is pretend that I like it next time. I think that's such a helpful and clarifying point, that that's the kind of thing that can

13:50Kimberley Wilson:then extend into adulthood, into things like people pleasing, into things like suppression of your emotions because you learn actually what's more important is not what you're feeling yeah it's how other people are interpreting your responses and their feelings which actually then makes it harder to feel authentic gratitude when you're older because as a child we've learned to push aside our feelings but actually to feel gratitude we need to be able to feel our feelings and recognize that how we feel in any moment is okay whether it's a pleasant feeling or a difficult feeling and our feelings are valid and that helps us to feel worthwhile as humans that helps us to feel that we are appreciated and that helps us to then feel authentic gratitude when we have it when I was a young teenager a family friend of mine bought me a pair of gold earrings for my birthday um the only hitch in this plan was one I didn't like gold really I'm more of a silver person but more importantly I didn't have my ears pierced I'm grateful for a gift it's really nice that I've been thought about but also this is nothing to do with me but being able to wrestle with those complex feelings is really important to be able to hold those two things yeah the ability to do that helps us to be able to decide what we do in that moment, maybe communicate that effectively or not.

15:17We might decide not to, we might decide actually in this moment, I recognise that this person was genuinely trying to do something nice for me and it doesn't feel like the right time for me to say, but I don't have my ears pierced. That's okay as long as you acknowledge your own feelings and emotions in that and you don't downplay that and make yourself feel bad for the fact that you're not really keen on gold earrings.

15:42Kimberley Wilson:Yeah so it's not a zero-sum game you don't have to do one or the other you can acknowledge your own feelings and then decide how you choose to respond in that moment.

15:55Kimberley Wilson:So we've had a definition but I also love a scale because what I like about a scale is that it gives us context and nuance and understanding about where we might as individuals fit in a particular kind of behavior. And so I'm thinking we can put gratitude on a scale. And if we have authentic gratitude sitting at the far end, what do we have over here at the near end? An inability to feel gratitude. Maybe a recognition that I don't feel gratitude at all. Well, maybe what Tom described is that kind of distress. Yeah. Something's wrong. There's a disconnect. I don't feel grateful. and then in there is also the acknowledgement of the social expectation that I should feel grateful there's a lot in that end because there's a lot of things that affect our ability to feel gratitude upbringing has a lot to do with it but also trauma depression stress how we feel in the moment how safe we feel how safe we feel because it's about the contextual aspects as well as the nature of our ability.

17:07Kimberley Wilson:That context might be my physical well-being, you know. I would be grateful but I have food poisoning and I need to be in bed. Or yes, I'm depressed, I'm incredibly stressed, I'm preoccupied, I have so many things going on that I actually don't have the space of mind to stop and think and appreciate because all of my energy is going in a different direction. Yeah. And are there internal or external conditions that help us to be able to feel and hold on to gratitude? Yes. Physiologically, if our body is in a place where our parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, so if we're more in a state of rest and digest safety, we're more able to recognize and feel gratitude.

17:56if we're able to feel our emotions without suppressing them, we're more likely to be able to feel authentic gratitude. If we are not feeling depressed, if we haven't got significant trauma, it's easier to recognise gratitude.

18:13Kimberley Wilson:I mean, this is what we do on Complex, which is to say it's not that simple. It's not that simple to say to someone like Tom, you're being ungrateful. Because there's so much happening physiologically. It might be things that are happening around you in that moment. It might be things maybe in the broader social world that are interfering with your ability to be like, I appreciate this. Thank you very much. And I think that's just really helpful for listeners to know that it's not just about putting a black mark through your behavior. Yeah. But being curious and being able to think about, OK, well, if I feel like I should be feeling grateful, why am I not?

18:47Yeah. What is it about this moment that's making me feel this way rather than what's wrong with me? Why can't I feel grateful?

18:55Kimberley Wilson:There's something that happens, isn't there, when we're not really grateful. But also the person who gave us the gift or did us the favour knows that we're not really grateful. And we get into this little dance. It is very complicated because thinking about what's going on in that moment, two people recognising something in someone else, but neither of them saying it. so let's say I've given you the gift your face falls yeah and I know you well enough to have a sense of of your disappointment yeah it's this thing where we both kind of acknowledge reality and then deny reality at the same time yeah and implicitly agree to just pretend together I think that's two people really who find it difficult to acknowledge their emotions and to recognise that individually how they feel is okay.

19:50Kimberley Wilson:Yes. And to be able to say either, I really appreciate the time and effort that you've put into this, it's not for me, or I recognise that you maybe don't like it. That's okay if you don't. I can take it back, we can do something else. But I think sometimes we don't feel like we're able to do that. You know, socially it feels very uncomfortable. I think it speaks to a kind of fragility, doesn't it? Either, let's say, fragility in me as the gift giver to be able to bear the disappointment. I made a mistake. I got it wrong. Or a fragility in the relationship where you can't just say, I can't believe what you're doing.

20:29Kimberley Wilson:I love you, but this is well off the mark. Yeah, I would agree with that. And often I think it comes down to a difficulty to be able to sit with the discomfort of unpleasant emotions. And you have to either sit with your own or sit with someone else's. and often people avoid that because they're not used to it, it doesn't feel good. So people would rather avoid sitting with the discomfort of those feelings and pretend everything's fine. And then next year I get you something else that you hate. Exactly, and the cycle continues. And then moving on to the far end, that real authentic gratitude. We're in a good physiological state, we feel safe, we've got a good emotional vocabulary, good emotional granularity, and that puts us in a better state to be able to say thank you I appreciate this thing that you or the environment has given to me or demonstrated to me about myself.

21:22Yeah and I can really feel that and I can feel that in my body often as a sense of warmth inner glow sometimes people describe it's just a sort of fuzziness. Contentment. Yeah yeah.

21:38Kimberley Wilson:now many people listening might feel that they're not naturally grateful you know they don't bounce out of bed and thank the sun for shining but what we know from positive psychology is that an attitude of gratitude if we can cultivate it is good for our mental health so where should people start there are lots of different ways that we can practice gratitude and i think it does come down to trying them out, seeing what feels like it works best for you, but not trying to force gratitude or force the feelings. Because one of my hesitations, even in working with gratitude therapeutically, is not teaching someone to deny the reality of their experience and just kind of slap a big sticker with a happy smiley face on top of it.

22:24Kimberley Wilson:Exactly. Yes. How do we avoid that? you have to recognize that how you feel in a moment is valid so you don't want to suppress how you feel at any time so if you feel sad you're allowed to feel that sadness and then once that feeling has passed then thinking more deeply about the moment so gratitude isn't just about noticing things that made you happy or noticing things that are nice it's really about recognising what was it about that moment that led to the feeling of appreciation. What was the effort that somebody put in or what did that moment mean to me? How did that make me feel and why is that something to be aware of?

23:06So it's not necessarily the thing, it's the meaning of the thing. Yes, exactly. And there's lots of ways to do it. You can keep gratitude diaries. The research does show that they can be effective as long as it's authentic and as long as we don't overdo it. And a lot of gratitude actually is also about trying to extend how we feel to others. So there's some research, for example, into the benefits of writing letters to people. We don't have to send them, but writing letters to people who have done nice things for us in the past, who we've appreciated in our lives, and really thinking about what they brought to our lives and why they did that and what that says about us.

23:47And I think it comes back to what we said right at the start, that actually that helps us to think about our value and worth as humans. And if we decide to give that to someone else, then that also spreads that feeling and helps the other person to feel it too. I love a gratitude letter.

24:02Kimberley Wilson:It's such a lovely exercise to do. Because I think you can get stuck, whatever your circumstances, in feeling a bit grumbly and disenchanted. and the thing about a gratitude letter again whether you send it or not is that you have to sit down and think about the efforts that people have made for you or the little acts of kindness that might have actually really shifted something really significantly for you because our brains naturally turn towards the negative we're always looking for the threat or the risk or the harm or the loss and it's like turning that tanker and saying actually let's focus on the positive let's dig them out and really remind ourselves that they're there.