The process of recovery may at times feel overwhelming to you and your daughter. It may seem like the therapy your daughter attends requires many big changes that are hard to implement. These changes can include slowly changing the way your daughter thinks. However, with the support of a care team and therapists, change is possible. What’s more, you can continue to implement these changes at home. Clearview believes in making minor and major changes through our therapies. One of the easiest changes to implement into your daughter’s life is incorporating gratitude. Learning about gratitude in therapy will help your daughter make positive changes and alter her ways of thinking.
Gratitude is an incredibly simple practice that is easy to implement. The act of noting all that your daughter is grateful for in life will improve her daily life, especially when done consistently. This practice can also help teens who are struggling to feel empathy and become more connected with others. Gratitude can be considered a practice of mindfulness, which enhances cognitive functioning and focus. Being able to note what she is grateful for will help switch your daughter’s focus from the struggles in her life to what is going right.
The Practice of Gratitude in Therapy
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) explains that “One of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness and well-being is the amount of gratitude that a person experiences. Gratitude involves noticing and appreciating the positives in life. Gratitude is both (1) an attitude and (2) a practice.”
Employing a gratitude practice helps improve your daughter’s quality of life. The reason that this happens is because her focus turns toward the good things in life, searching through her day to find moments of joy. This focus on positive moments and things to feel grateful for will switch your daughter’s focus from her struggles.
Having a therapist implement the practice in the beginning is important. For people who have been struggling or experiencing trauma, it can feel strange to look for the positives. This is especially true on bad days. However, it is something that can be learned through repetition until it becomes natural. Gaining a more positive perspective on life will allow for the therapeutic processes to feel easier for your daughter.
Practicing Empathy
One skill that teenagers can learn from practicing gratitude is greater empathy. Many times when young girls are struggling, they can get wrapped up in themselves and their world. If they are in pain, it can be hard to notice those around them. Encouraging girls to reach out and look around will help them regain a sense of empathy.
Empathy is an important skill in each part of life. It is a skill that will help your daughter become the kind of person she wants to be. Instead of lashing out at those around her due to her internal struggles, she will be able to look at her life and feel grateful for the good things.
Being grateful for one’s life and those within it also will enhance empathy and strengthen connections with others around her. The relationships around her that may have been damaged can be mended, and she can see the importance of maintaining connection. No matter how disconnected she has become, there are always chances to start over. She may even be able to form connections with new, healthier people who embody a sense of gratitude and empathy. If she had been associating with negative people, she will see that she wants to change that and embrace positive connections.
Mindfulness Through Gratitude in Therapy
Therapy and treatment at Clearview can teach your daughter many skills that she will employ in her daily life and recovery. These things are meant to make her life easier and more manageable. Your daughter must take an active role in working on these coping skills and find tools that work for her. Learning gratitude in therapy is a simple and effective way to bring therapeutic processes into her daily life. Practicing gratefulness will make your daughter more mindful, which in turn will help her cognitive abilities and improve her problem-solving skills.
Mindfulness is a practice that is a part of many substance abuse and mental health treatments. Practicing mindfulness involves sitting with one’s thoughts and noticing them without judging them. It is the practice of seeing one’s emotions and not acting on them but sitting with them.
Your daughter can learn how to regulate her emotions through mindfulness. Greater emotional regulation will help her function better in all types of situations. Gratefulness encourages mindfulness because of its call to look around and within and notice things in one’s life. This quiet noticing and appreciation helps maintain a positive mindset and a healthy outlook on life.
When your daughter is in recovery, it is important to find ways to encourage her growth and development. Having gratitude as a practice is an easy way to focus on positivity and mindfulness each day. This is something that can be taught in therapy and then implemented in daily life. You can encourage your daughter to remain grateful, and this will help her stay connected with and empathetic toward those around her. This will also help her maintain a sense of love and wonder in her life. We believe therapeutic intervention should teach your daughter skills that will make her life better. If you think a gratefulness practice could improve your daughter’s life, contact Clearview at 866-584-4788.
