Happy Thanksgiving! Giving Thanks to Be Happy & Healthy!

[fringekitty]

Giving thanks seems to be good for your health according to a University of Miami study. Professor Michael McCullough states that gratitude can interrupt negative emotions. Just simply listing a couple of things you're thankful for when ticked off can switch the mind out of that hurtful state by quickly engaging the left prefrontal cortex which

Comments

[bjscrowd]

I have always tried to consciously look for positive things to feel good about when I'm down. recently someone was feeling really down and suicidal on my friends page and I pointed out that they had lots to be thankful and I said life is hard so? they wrote back that I was minimizing there pain & to get off my high horse. I took it in stride and didn't feed into the negativity then I was basically told to F off and was removed from their friends list. Go figure?
if I didn't always look for positive things I would not survived as long as I have it is good to know that there is actually research on this. I hope you have a great thanksgiving and continue getting better, both physically and mentally

[fringekitty]

I hope this person is OK now. That's an incredibly difficult situation to navigate. Try not to take this behavior too personally. I know you weren't trying to minimize; however, someone in that state is already being irrational. Hopefully, as they start to heal a bit more, they'll reach out again.

What I find particularly interesting is that this research indicates thankfulness trumps even positivity in the sense that someone feeling quite negative, full of feelings that need to be expressed, can still do that in a constructive fashion if they remember to balance, or at least attempt to balance, negative feelings with thoughts of what makes them feel thankful. IOW, it's perfectly OK to express the negativity, in fact, this is often essential as a form of venting, much better than holding it in or denying it, but the key is to turn this around with gratitude for other aspects of life. If someone can do this, he or she can move into a better frame of mind.

[lynn82md]

because he was not 'a believer.' If he had meant not a believer in consumerism, that would have made sense to me, but I've never associated Thanksgiving with a requirement for belief. A person can certainly be thankful without having to worship or direct thanks to a deity/deities.It's usually not to do with a belief in a faith. In the last couple years, I've learned that there are people that won't celebrate Thanksgiving because of the way the native Americans were treated as well as killed by the settlers. However, the thing is that they were treated bad and killed way before the Pilgrims even came to America and they continued to be treated badly for centuries after wards in the other colonies. Not to mention, with the tribe that helped out the Pilgrims, they had peace for thirty years...which was pretty damn good

[fringekitty]

That's a very good point. I myself dislike Columbus Day for the same reasons (plus the historical inaccuracies).

However, for this chap, it was strictly a theological (or lack thereof) argument, which I just didn't understand.* Sometimes, I got the feeling that this might have been cover for not wanting to be around family dysfunction, which I WOULD understand completely. I'm braving my family dysfunction quite simply because I don't know how long certain members will be with us.

*I do have other friends with a theological argument against the holiday who are Witnesses. They make it quite clear why they don't participate. However, I'm still not getting the "I don't believe in a god, so I don't celebrate Thanksgiving." argument.

Back to your main point, it is very sad that we celebrate such a wonderful attempt to harmonize while still marginalizing the very people who tried to help. It is difficult to rationalize why this idealism doesn't translate into help or at least a fair deal for Native Americans today.

[hdiandrew]

Always thankful for cool friends

[fringekitty]

:) Lots of love to you & your family. I hope you have a wonderful T-day!