Gratitude, Grief, and the Gifts We Don't Choose

In this deeply personal Thanksgiving episode, I reflect on the ways that grief and gratitude are intertwined.

This episode is dedicated to my brother Adam on his birthday. Acknowledging Worldwide Bereaved Siblings Month, I share how his death reshaped what gratitude means to me.

Join me to explore how we create meaning after trauma, how you're doing gratitude wrong, and ways to utilize it for better health and happiness.

This episode is an invitation to reflect, not a prescription for how to feel. It’s a compassionate look at how healing, gratitude, and meaning-making can coexist, even when life doesn’t look the way we imagined.

Special thanks to Kyle Dine for permission to use his song The Doghouse for the podcast theme!
www.kyledine.com

Find Dr. Whitehouse:
-thefoodallergypsychologist.com
-Instagram: @thefoodallergypsychologist
-Facebook: Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, Food Allergy Anxiety Psychologist
-welcome@dramandawhitehouse.com

Transcript

Amanda Whitehouse, PhD: 0:00

Gratitude isn't about pretending that everything's okay. It is about being able to hold both the light and the dark and to still notice what's beautiful even when it hurts.

Speaker: 0:10

Welcome to the Don't Feed the Fear podcast, where we dive into the complex world of food allergy anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, food allergy anxiety psychologist and food allergy mom. Whether you're dealing with allergies yourself or supporting someone who is, join us for an empathetic and informative journey toward food allergy calm and confidence..

Amanda Whitehouse, PhD: 0:31

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Don't Feed The Fear since Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I wanted to start this month with a conversation about gratitude and some things that I want you to know about it that you might not have heard before. Because honestly, most of us are doing gratitude wrong, and I don't mean that we're not thankful or that we don't appreciate what we have. We've heard the research about the positive impact of a gratitude practice, but the way most of us are practicing gratitude, if we are at all. Often misses the mark when it comes to what makes it beneficial for our brains and for our nervous systems. So in this episode, I wanna help you understand what a helpful gratitude practice actually looks like based on the research and how you can use it to be a more regulated, resilient present. Person or parent in your daily life with the people that you love and maybe even find a little more peace in the middle of the sometimes chaos that comes with allergy life and everything else complicated that's going on in the world right now, and the other non allergy related complicated things that continue to happen in each of our lives. And I'm going to share a little bit of that for myself in this episode to give you some context for this conversation. This episode falls on a meaningful day for me. It's my brother's birthday. November is also worldwide bereaved siblings month. So this conversation about gratitude, growth and how we find meaning in the midst of hardship feels especially close to home for me, and is very related to the death of my brother in 2020. This episode is dedicated to my brother Adam. It's his birthday today as I publish it. He was a photographer and an artist. If you've ever seen video clips of me online, you've probably seen one of my favorite paintings of his hanging behind me. He was also a graphic designer and before he passed he had been helping me build out a website and a lot of other different things to expand my business. We never got to finish that work together. So much of what I'm doing now from this podcast and learning to do all the tech side of it myself to some other projects that I have in the works for the future are all my way of finishing what he and I started together, that he's not here with me to do. What I'm hoping to do is have a very open and nuanced conversation with you about something that I've been thinking about for a while. I keep seeing the social media trend, what I'd tell you as a psychologist, if I weren't afraid to hurt your feelings, and of course I have a lot of thoughts, but this is my version of that with a twist because I am afraid of hurting your feelings. I'm a psychologist. It's literally my job to help people face hard things and have difficult conversations without feeling attacked or dismissed or having their feelings hurt by the person that they're in the conversation with So like many of the things I want to share with you, I just can't seem to boil them down to a social media post that really gets all that across. Instead of telling you something bluntly, I want to explore this complicated topic with you. It's an uncomfortable truth. It's something that I've experienced in my own life and with all of my clients, and I want to do it in a way that feels gentle, curious, and supportive. I want you to feel invited into this reflection that I'm offering, not confronted by it. And so with that spirit and mindset, this Thanksgiving episode is not about forced gratitude or pretending to be thankful for the hard things, and it's certainly not about i gnoring or pushing away your difficult feelings. It is about looking honestly at what grows around those hard things. The compassion, the connection, and the perspective that can slowly take root over time. I'm still learning this too, falling in and out of helpful habits around this. I'm already tearing up as I'm trying to get through what I want to talk about today, and so please know that this is a really vulnerable thing for me to share and it's very honest and genuine from me a bout one of the worst things that I've experienced that's actually been really helpful for me in understanding gratitude and shifting my awareness and my perspective of our allergy life. So for years. My one wish, my singular focus into which I poured almost all of my time and energy and money was that my son would outgrow his food allergies. Eventually, that wish evolved into a new one that he would complete. Oral immunotherapy, reach, maintenance, and have the layer of protection that would let us all breathe easier, even if he didn't ever want to eat his allergens on a regular basis. Really what I wanted was not for my son to be able to eat peanuts, tree nuts sesames and the other things he's allergic to, but I wanted him to be safe and unfortunately, the year that that wish came true, I had to face the reality that my brother was dying. It was his last Christmas and we all knew it. He had been ill with cancer and wasn't responding to his treatments. My son and I talked about how my longtime wish was coming true and how that year I would change that wish if I could. During that holiday season when my brother was sick, we were given this rare, heartbreaking, but also extraordinary gift of awareness. We knew that our time was probably growing short together. We suspected that that might be our last Christmas, our last Thanksgiving, and so we experienced that last holiday season together with so much intention. We took so many pictures, we gave so many more hugs. We had conversations that most families never get the. Chance of the courage to have. My brother was so gracious through it all. And his ability to speak so openly with us about it is really what created this shift for me. He let my kids ask him every question about dying and if he was afraid, and what he thought was gonna happen afterward, and somehow, instead of scaring them, that really soothed their fears about death. Even while he was facing his own, I cannot imagine a more beautiful gift that anyone could give my children than that turning his own death into an act of love, compassion, and emotional safety for them. We traveled quite a distance to the allergist that my son completed immunotherapy with. About a four hour drive each way from Buffalo. And so given the circumstances in the family and my brother's passing, we ended up traveling for his 24 peanut challenge going down, traveling farther away to where my brother lived for his memorial service, and then coming back for my son's peanut butter challenge, which was eating a Reese. For his dose to make sure that he could tolerate the peanut in the peanut butter form. As you can imagine, he had been so excited about that. That was the thing that we all, as a family, had been planning on going together to all eat a Reese Cup with him to celebrate his success, to have this delicious candy that he had been waiting so long to be able to try, which of course he didn't like. There are no words to explain what a collision of emotions this time in my life was. The joy and the grief, the relief, and the safety and peace with my son, coupled with the loss and the heartbreak of my brother's death, and watching my family members be impacted by that loss and. That completely changed how I understand gratitude. Gratitude doesn't mean I should be thankful because someone else has it worse, or I should be thankful because this worse thing could be happening to me that's not, right. Now, it's not about comparison or putting things on a scale and balancing it. This one is worse than that one, and that tips the scales in this direction. I think of it as zooming out, stepping back far enough to see that your life. Your pain, your love, your gratitude, all of those things coexist. And unfortunately, sometimes it does take really difficult life experiences to learn that. I hope most of you don't have to have an experience or a loss like mine to find this out. If you're in that place right now, i want you to know that you can be exhausted and grateful. You can be afraid and be hopeful. You can grieve what you've lost and celebrate what you still have, and that's what real gratitude looks like. After Halloween this year, my son who has food allergies sorted through his candy and he had far less than his brothers. Once he got his safe candy set aside, this has never really bothered him much, but this year particularly, he didn't even blink. He hugged me and he said, it can't be a coincidence that I was born with my allergies and you ended up as my mom. And that moment really stopped me. He was. Expressing his awareness of how much I've learned, how hard I've worked to learn to keep him safe, and awareness of the job that lies ahead for him as we transition the responsibility and the independence to him as he gets older. He was acknowledging how deeply we're connected in this shared journey that I've been on with him, and that led us to a bigger conversation about what we believe about why things happen. Please do not think I'm saying this is an, everything happens for a reason, philosophy, or conversation, but I wanna invite you to explore what meaning of your experiences feels authentic for you. In our family, we've come to see his allergies as one part of a much bigger story, one that includes its share of heartbreaks, really scary and traumatic moments, so many blessings. If that perspective feels out of reach right now, that's okay, and maybe it will shift someday. Maybe it won't. I'm not saying you should see it that way. I, I'm only sharing this to show you that it's possible. I also wanna share with you what the research says about it, because we know that this kind of meaning making is a big part of what can heal trauma. The in trauma psychology, this, this concept called the meaning making model, which tells us that when an event deeply challenges our beliefs about ourselves or the world. So, for example, you might believe that life should be fair or that you're protected as long as a, B and C are in place. Or I can trust this, I can trust the food system, I can trust, the laws to help protect me with my food allergies. When that is challenged and something proves that that is not the case. It's very distressing for us that. Leads us to engage in a process of meaning making. We ask, why is this happening? How does this fit into my life story and into my picture of who I am and what my life is. Over time, we either adjust the meaning of the event or we shift our broader beliefs to more global or overarching picture so that the event makes sense. Our perspective of life grows and becomes more integrated the more life experiences we have. So what that means for us is my son's allergy, our journey, the care and the traveling, and all of the treatments that we've done and everything in between. They didn't just happen to us. We've been asking what does this mean about who we are? What does this showing us about what we stand for and what we believe? What do we want our story to include? That doesn't mean that we can rewrite and eliminate the parts that we don't like, and that doesn't mean that we're rewriting it into something that's only positive. I'm not asking you to believe that your allergy or your child's allergy has to be for a reason. I'm simply saying consider exploring what meaning you might make out of it In addition to the difficult parts. Are there important pieces of growth? Of value, of identity shifting, of connection? Research suggests that that meaningful reflection, not forced positivity, can support our healing and our resilience. So once again, I want to emphasize, I'm not telling you how you should feel, but I'm sharing with you how I feel, why research tells us that it works and to consider how you might feel when you're ready or in time. That perspective took shape for me. Through grief, My brother's illness and loss changed how I see everything. Gratitude, love, parenting, relationships, death. And what matters the most? This is a tricky topic because a lot of us who have food allergies, a lot of us who manage chronic illnesses, Whatever our challenges are, whether they're our own or whether they're our children's that we're trying to manage. When people tell us that we should feel grateful, it feels so dismissive. It feels extremely invalidating, and gratitude should never be used to dismiss someone else's pain. Gratitude for healing, has to come from within, not be imposed upon you by someone else. So we know people might, mean, well, they might be trying to comfort you. They're probably uncomfortable with your pain or your anxiety or stress, but that phrase shuts down the very real fear, grief, exhaustion, confusion, everything that comes with managing food allergies And many families I know are navigating so much more than food allergies, parents with their own chronic or terminal illnesses, kids with complex medical needs of which the allergies are the least of their concerns, or very low on the totem pole of their concerns, or many other layers of trauma and loss. And what I've learned from myself, from those people and from reading about how this works, is that there are ways that we can make an effort to be grateful, effective if it comes from within. That's what I want you to take away from this episode. The research on gratitude practices show that a gratitude practice that includes reflection, imagery, and emotional connection has a measurable effect on you. Physiologically, not just how you feel emotionally, but on important factors of wellness, like your heart rate variability, which is a key indicator of vagal tone and stress resilience, greater activation in brain regions that are associated with empathy and emotional regulation, and a whole host of other things. An effective gratitude. Practice is not, making a list in particular, forcing yourself to make a list of things you should be grateful for. The research is very clear that surface level gratitude lists don't change our mood, our mindset, our physiology, our brains are wired for survival. So if you are living with chronic stress, whether that's food, allergies, other reasons to worry about safety, worrying about providing for your family accessibility of safe food or just trying to hold it all together for whatever reason you are facing, your body is tuned to scan for threat writing down. I'm thankful for. My kids, the dinner that we had tonight that I have a job, doesn't convince your nervous system that you're safe. What works is when you slow down enough to feel the gratitude in your body. Let your nervous system register that in that moment you are okay. Let your nervous system acknowledge that there will be more moments of okayness in the future. That's when the gratitude shifts your physiology. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system. It calms your stress response and it helps you regulate. So if you have ever felt like your gratitude practice isn't working, it's probably because it was only happening in your head, it not your body. So let's talk about 10 signs that you're doing your gratitude practice wrong, and how you can shift it. I already mentioned number one, you list the same three things every day. If your gratitude list looks identical every time your brain is checked out, this is a chore. It's a routine and not a practice. Number two, you say what? You should be grateful for that bad S word. Should therapists often say this line, you're shoulding all over yourself, because it really does feel a lot like the other s. H word. You should be grateful. When we are struggling, hurting, or grieving, we can't be shamed or guilted into feeling grateful instead. And it isn't just for mothers. We do this to ourselves too. Most of us know that we have so much to be grateful for, but guilting and shaming ourselves into trying to feel that instead of the difficult emotions becomes a weapon against us and makes us feel even worse. cause then we're invalidating our own feelings. Then we end up adding to our to-do list, making a list of three things we're grateful for. But practicing this in a way that creates more pressure. When gratitude feels like an obligation, it activates guilt instead of calm. Number three, you're stating things. Not feeling them at all. So gratitude is a body-based experience. If it's just mental or just cognitive, it won't shift your nervous system. After naming something on your list, pause and see if you can feel even a little bit of warmth, relief or ease in your body. Number four, you use gratitude to suppress uncomfortable emotions. If you jump to at least when something hurts, you're bypassing something, So allow space for both. Not, I'm sad that this happened, but at least I still have my job. Shift those words to, I'm sad that this happened and I'm grateful for the support or the resources that I have. Number five, you're comparing your gratitude to others. Comparison is the thief of joy. If you feel like your gratitude isn't big enough, you're missing the point. Gratitude is personal. This is about your life. Tiny things count things that other people wouldn't appreciate or like or want, but that are meaningful to you. They train your system to notice safety and beauty in the small moments. Number six. I see this a lot. You only practice when things are good. If gratitude disappears and stress, it's not integrated yet, and that's okay. But if you find it easy to feel grateful when life is going well, and then especially difficult when things are hard, that's when your nervous system needs the reminder of safety the most. So it doesn't mean you're not doing it right. Go ahead and give up. It means keep working on it. Keep trying to cultivate the feelings of gratitude, not just go through the motions. Number seven. If you think gratitude means being happy all the time, you're off track. It's not about constant positivity, it's about presence. So gratitude is saying even in this, something good still exists, even in this hard moment. I also still have things that are good. Number eight, you're rushing through it. It's not just that you're doing 1, 2, 3 things that I'm thankful for without really feeling them, but you are just trying to get through it as quickly as you can without having the time to register the benefit. It doesn't have to take a long time, but we do need to slow down. So even just one mindful breath with genuine appreciation and a brief scan of the somatic or the body symptoms that you're experiencing. When you think about the thing that you listed that can do more than a list of 10 things that you didn't actually feel. Number nine, you feel worse afterward. So if your gratitude practice leaves you feeling ashamed, invalidated, it's probably tangled up with self-criticism. So again, we wanna shift from feeling how I should be grateful or anyone else would be grateful to. I'm learning to notice gratitude even when it's hard. I'm working on cultivating more gratitude, even though it's not coming naturally for me. Okay. And number 10, you've lost curiosity. When gratitude falls flat, it's a sign to refresh your approach. So here's how you can implement this in a way that actually works and will benefit you. Number one, be specific. Instead of saying, I'm grateful for my family, try really specific things that are connected to moments that you can re-experience. Like I'm grateful for the way my son laughed so hard at dinner tonight. That milk came out of his nose. try changing the question instead of, what am I grateful for? Ask something more specific. I asked you to give specific answers, so ask specific questions. What brought me comfort today? What felt peaceful today? Number two, pair it with the sensations from that moment. After identifying something that you're grateful for, pause before you go onto the next item on the list or before you go onto your next task for the day. And notice how your body feels. Tune in to the way maybe your chest softens your shoulders. Drop your smile naturally forms on your face. Any of the signals in your body that tell your nervous system, I'm safe right now because when we actually experience something, rather than just verbally identifying it, it gives our body the same nervous system signals that we would receive when we were actually living in that moment. And number three, just savor that. Let it last for a few seconds. Give your brain time to encode that positive emotion into your long-term memory. Give your nervous system a second to shift into that safety that you just signal for it, and that's how you turn gratitude from a thought into a practice. Something that rewires your brain toward resilience. Instead of just checking a box on a list and then getting frustrated and wondering why it's not working. For me, Thanksgiving is not about being thankful for everything. It's about recognizing what continues to grow, so this season, if gratitude feels hard, try doing it differently. Gratitude means awareness, not positivity. Let your gratitude be embodied. Let it live in your nervous system, not just in your journal. Feel it, savor it. Let it be honest, even if it's complicated. And if you're finding your way through something really heavy right now, I'm sending you so much warmth and compassion because Gratitude isn't a cure for pain. It's a companion for it. As we wrap up for today, here are three action steps to support you through the start of the busy holiday season. Number one, build a gratitude practice that redefines gratitude as awareness, not positivity. Embodiment and consistency matter more than length, so keep it simple. Be present. Pause to name what you appreciate specifically and how it engages your senses and helps your nervous system register safety. Number two, you could revisit the episode I did last year before the holidays. It's episode nine and it's called a Safe Seat at the Table. It's been one of my most listened to episodes, and people continue to ask this all the time In that episode, I break down how to think through decisions about holiday celebrations given what family members and events might hold, and specific to your allergies or your child's allergies and what is needed. To make a decision that feels like a good option, not the right option. And number three, check out episode 1 32 of the Itch podcast that came out in October. Courtney and Dr. Gupta had me on their show to talk about setting boundaries around holiday gatherings and events. I do have that episode coming up. I'm going to be reposting it here on the show, but I don't have it out yet. So if you wanna listen to that now, that is easy to find on the Itch podcast, episode 1 32. If this episode resonated, I would be so thankful if you would share it with somebody who might need to hear that their feelings and their gratitude can coexist. And most of all, I want you all to know that I'm grateful for you listening and spending your time with me here on the Don't Feed The Fear Podcast. I'm so appreciative to be connected to such a supportive community, and I really wish all the best for you. So to those in the US here with me, happy Thanksgiving to those in Canada. I know I have a lot of you listening who already celebrated in October. Happy belated Thanksgiving to you and to everyone else all around the world. I can't believe you're listening here to my little podcast coming out of Buffalo, New York. So even though you may not be celebrating this holiday, know that I'm thankful for you too.

23:08

the content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any questions about your own medical experience or mental health needs, please consult a professional. I'm Dr. Amanda Whitehouse. Thanks for joining me. And until we chat again, remember don't feed the fear.