Thanksgiving is my personal favorite holiday. This has nothing to do with what one friend of color called "the Pilgrim's Pillage" here in north America. It has everything to do with gratitude, feeling and giving thanks, appreciating the smallest as well as the largest of blessings in our lives, and coming together with those we care about to mark this occasion.
In the 12-Step model of recovery and wellbeing, the "attitude of gratitude" is promoted and lauded as a necessity for real health. There's other evidence from spirituality and mental health that this is true. Even in difficult circumstances, if you can remember and put some focus on whatever it might be that you have to be grateful for in your life, and certainly if you can actively cultivate a remembrance of and a practice of acknowledging the people, circumstances and things that you have to be grateful for, this goes a long way toward building and sustaining happiness and health.
Sometimes it's important to see the wisdom of being grateful even for difficulties. The Dalai Lama is well known for having said that his enemies are his greatest teachers, and the people in his life that he is most grateful for. Why would this be so? Because, he says, they provide him with the best opportunities to cultivate and practice patience, non-violence, compassion, and loving kindness. And it is these qualities that, from the Buddhhist view, lead most directly to happiness.
We can say that these qualities are clearly also important for mental health. And all of them are linked to gratitude. In this time of thanksgiving, let's try to remember the gifts in our lives, and make it a day to day practice to humbly give thanks for the true blessings that are ours.
