January 5-6 2019: Epiphany of the Lord
The Psychology Behind Giving Thanks
Interview With Dr. Paul Vitz (Part 2)
Q: In other interviews we have spoken about the virtue of forgiveness and its relation to mental health. How can gratitude also play a role in the healing process?
Vitz: Let me propose this: One of the major barriers to forgiveness is anger, and resentment toward some-body. As long as that emotion is front-and-centre in your mental life, it's very hard to forgive.
But if you can begin to be thankful for things that are present in your life, once you realize that you've been given things, and given them gratis, things change.
I mean, you did not pay God to give you life, and no human being paid God to send Our Lord among us. So when you realize the things that you have, that you've been given, and you are filled with gratitude, it puts anger, bitterness and resentment aside.
When you realize what's been given to you, just out of generosity then I believe it is easier to forgive. Because to forgive someone is to give them something. It is to give up your debt to them. It is as if they owe you a hundred dollars, they owe you this or they owe you that, an apology or whatever, and you give up the claim to it.
So you are giving something to them in the way that God, life and others have given to you, that you your-self have shown gratitude for.
Q: We have already spoken a little about the meaning of the Eucharist and how it is "thanksgiving." But how else does our faith teaches us gratitude in a deeper way, a way that goes beyond positive psychology's definition of gratitude?
Vitz: It certainly goes beyond positive psychology. It's really gratitude to God.
It is gratitude for sending Jesus so that our sins are atoned for. It is the gratitude for all the gifts that God has given us, the people we know, the beauty of the world around us.
Gratitude and love are very closely related. Thus, since we are at the deepest level called to love God and love others, gratitude facilitates that. Gratitude moves you toward love, and since God is love, gratitude at the very deepest level moves us toward God.
(Concluded).