Each Thanksgiving my family has a tradition of listing things we’re grateful for on a receipt roll and putting it on our Thanksgiving table so we have a visual representation of our many blessings.

Just the act of thinking about all these things is powerful; science shows this has tremendous benefit to our emotional health.  It makes us happier, more creative and more productive. See last year’s Thanksgiving article about the science of gratitude.  

List of Things You’re Grateful for

What’s on your top 10 list of things you’re grateful for this year?  Mine includes my husband, my four daughters, my faith in Jesus Christ, my extended family and friends, a healthy body, a home with heat, clean potable water, a healthy body, an understanding of tools to stay emotionally healthy, my work as a life coach, and the experience of living among many cultures and people.  Gratitude is powerful.  

List of Things You’re NOT Grateful For

While Thanksgiving is a time we typically think about what we ARE thankful for, I want to encourage you to make an additional list of things you are NOT grateful for this year.   What we aren’t grateful for certainly isn’t a place we want to dwell, but doing it in conjunction with what we ARE grateful for can have some very helpful outcomes.

There are two reasons listing what you are NOT grateful for can be a helpful exercise:

Opposites Accentuate Understanding

First, when we list things are are NOT grateful for, it can accentuate we ARE grateful for. The contrast can help us recognize what we value.  For example, when someone passes away, we recognize more deeply what they meant to us when they were living. When we are sick, we appreciate our health.

This contrast allows us to not take things for granted. I grew up in the US and never thought twice about my access to clean, running water. Then I moved to Africa where we had to gather water from a dirty stream or pump water from the well. I certainly wasn’t grateful then for the extra work of getting clean water, but for the last 20 years, I deeply appreciate potable water.  

Time vs. Gratitude

Secondly, it can be interesting to reflect on the things we’re grateful for and ungrateful for over time.  Sometimes the things we aren’t grateful for now can become the very things we are most grateful for later.  Recognizing this can provide helpful perspective.  

Switching Lists

There have been years when one item on my hypothetical “un-grateful list” was so painful I could hardly think of things to write on my “grateful list.”  Over time, however, some of those same things have become the VERY thing I was most thankful for on my “grateful list” at a later time.

As I think back over the years I can see this clearly.  Here are a few examples:

	Past “NOT Grateful List“	Switched to “Grateful List“
Break Up	2001:  Heartbroken to have lost something I wanted	2004:  Recently married to someone else and intensely grateful for that breakup because it allowed me to find an amazing husband that was perfect for me
Colicky Baby	2009:  Exhausted and frustrated and unsure how to help the baby	2014:  Grateful for the deep compassion this has carved out in me for other parents who have children who struggle
Mom Pass Away	2011:  Grieving and felt deep loss	2013:  I don’t know if I’ll ever be grateful she passed away—but I have realized that I have become an entirely different, and better person through this experience
Expat Life	2012:  Frustrated with our transient, international life because I felt like it was ruining our children	2017:  Realization that this is the PERFECT life for our children to become who they are meant to be
Depression	2013:  Felt discouraged, and worried my depression was ruining everything in my life	2018:  Gratitude for the struggle because it has allowed emotional health to become a strength for me as I have learned the tools and skills to manage my mind and emotions.  In addition it has become a powerful tool I can use to teach my children.

It’s worth looking at your grateful list this year and noticing if any of those items used to be on your hypothetical un-grateful list.

And, it may be worth making an un-grateful list this year and pulling it out in a few years to provide perspective about how the things we are most frustrated with can sometimes become the things we are most grateful for.  Ingratitude can later be the key to gratitude.

How to See Gratitude Twists Over Time

What would have been on your un-grateful list 1 year ago or 5 or 10 or 20 years ago? Would you still categorize those things the same way?  

Is it possible something on your NOT grateful for list is the EXACT thing you will be most grateful for in 1, 5 or even 20 years? If so, why?