As we approach Thanksgiving 2025, my thoughts turn to four friends who have all lost parents within the past month, and how they’ll be dealing with the gratitude-focused holiday after this major life loss.
I believe the practice of gratitude is important and healthy, but this year especially, I find myself contemplating how gratitude can be compatible with a trauma-informed practice.
In recent years, we’ve heard more about the dangers of “toxic positivity.” It’s the idea that thinking positively or always looking on the bright side can actually be harmful to your well-being, if it’s to the extent that you are suppressing or denying your negative emotions.
Toxic gratitude is the close cousin of toxic positivity. It might show itself in thoughts like “I may be enduring verbal abuse, but at least I’m not alone,” or “other people have it so much worse than me, so I have no right to complain.”
But while such toxic gratitude isn’t helpful, a genuine and honest gratitude practice can be a lifeline in our darkest times. Dr. Judith Moskowitz, a social psychologist at Northwestern University, heads a research group called the Positive & Psychology Health Investigation Group. The group studies the effects of positive emotion on physical and mental health, particularly in the context of serious illness and other major life stresses.
Dr. Moskotwitz’s research on positive emotions started in the 90s when she was researching how partners of AIDS patients coped with the stress of both caregiving and losing their partners to the then fatal disease. She found that caregivers really wanted to talk about and share good things in their lives, even at the worst times. In these moments, gratitude becomes a powerful coping tool. As she puts it: “What we try to emphasize is that it is possible to experience positive emotion alongside negative emotions even when you are experiencing extreme stress.”
Keeping that in mind, taking some time on Thanksgiving to count blessings doesn’t mean you have to force yourself not to be upset about the hard things. You also don’t have to force yourself to feel grateful in moments you just don’t feel like it. But it struck me when Dr. Moskotwitz said virtually all of those caregivers of AIDS patients wanted to share about good things in their lives even right after their partners had just died. A conscious gratitude practice can keep us company in the dark, and shed light on a reality where good things are there, too.
Happy Thanksgiving. I’m grateful for the freedom to sometimes be sad.
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