An Attitude of Gratitude

By Christy Romero on July 14th, 2020

By James D. Huysman, PsyD, LCSW, CFT
WellMed Chief Compassion Officer

The world is a scary place these days, uncertain, threatening to take away that which we depend on to ‘get by’ in many cases. Those of us who have taken on primary caregiving duties may feel like we are constantly under siege for no reason, causing anxiety and depression in the face of responsibilities exacerbated by the unknown.

We may feel hopeless or powerless, like we are out of control, which can create panic in those of us understandably vulnerable to these feelings. Truly, we have no real control and may try to create some somewhere just to feel ok. The problem is that when we try to exert undue influence over people, places and things, our actions are often met with resistance, discord or feelings of resentment. Also, when we get stuck in bemoaning the past, present, or projecting our angst into the future, we waste our energy and exhaust ourselves. How can be possibly be grateful or effective under these circumstances?

The truth is that our attitude has everything to do with how we weather the storms around us.

The first step is to accept everything as it is; much like creating a restore point on a computer. Applying an attitude of gratitude reprograms our nervous systems, calms us, and rebalances us so that feelings of doom and gloom dissolve with the positive energy of gratitude. As human beings, these feelings come up. It’s ok to have unwanted feelings; they are our teachers. How wonderful that we can transform the worst of our feelings by embracing gratitude!

I urge you to purposely express gratitude whenever possible. Whenever you’re feel overwhelmed or overtaken by negative thoughts, stop and make a gratitude list. Mentally note or even take a moment jot down several (3 – 5) things for which you are grateful. It will change how you perceive and move through the world.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”. – Melody Beattie.

James D. (Dr. Jamie) Huysman, PsyD, LCSW, CFT, Chief Compassion Officer, Project Omega. Social entrepreneurship, advocacy, and innovation have been the touchstones and driving force throughout Dr. Jamie’s 30-year career encompassing both for-profit and nonprofit leadership roles. In the 1980s he undertook the advocacy, outreach, and clinical programming for addiction and dual diagnosis treatment facilities and developed his long standing private practice. The next decade found him serving as the clinical innovator for the major Talk, Court, and Reality television shows of the day. Seeing the need to advocate for guest’s rights, he designed and developed TV AfterCare®, the first national program dedicated to the clinical and corrective follow-up support for guests of the talk/court and reality genre, which remains active today. Dr. Jamie had hundreds of television and radio appearances and cohosted Walgreen’s Health Corner with media personalities Leeza Gibbons and subsequently Joan Lunden. In 2002, while working on her show, he partnered with Ms. Gibbons, co-founding and creating the programming for The Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, a formal network of national locations, providing direct services to family caregivers around the US. There he administratively and clinically supervised a trained staff dedicated to supporting the family caregivers of loved ones with memory disorders. Together with Rosemary DeAngelis Laird, MD, he and Gibbons co-wrote the bestselling Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Happiness While Caring for a Loved One with Memory Loss. It was during this time that “Dr. Jamie” became certified as a Compassion Fatigue Therapist and became a much sought-after keynote speaker and session presenter at numerous caregiving, senior, and aging conferences all over North America. He left the LGMF in 2010 and went to work for WellMed Medical Management as Vice President of Provider Relations and Government Affairs. Now, as newly appointed Chief Compassion Officer, he brings his special brand of connective magic to the Patient Teleconnection platform. Through this new national outreach effort and in behalf of the WellMed Charitable Foundation he continues his advocacy efforts to educate empower and energize medical patients within all healthcare systems today as well as the general public nationwide.