A “Stratitude” of Gratitude

Yes, you read that right, I said “Stratitude.” Last week’s post on Resentment ended with a promise to follow up this week with some options and examples of how to counter any rising resentment you might feel creeping into your relationship with Mama with the powerful antidote of Gratitude. And of course, you’ve all heard about cultivating an “attitude of gratitude.” But you’ll need more than that here. You’ll need a concrete strategy for deploying that gratitude in order for you to be most effective in your quest to build a new relationship together with Mama as parents and partners as you bounce forward into the future together. Hence, “Stratitude.”

 Here’s a short list of some tips, tricks, tools, and techniques you can use to help you shape and refine your “stratitude” of turning resentment into gratitude. Remember, resentment is a thief. And like a thief, it will do more damage the longer it is allowed to roam freely in your being.

 1)    Be vigilant in seeking to identify the first pangs of resentment as they begin to arise in your belly. Catching this destructive feeling early makes things much easier to counter, and perhaps more importantly, prevents it from causing too much damage. Things to watch for here include comparative thinking of others, especially against Mama or other new parents, as well as internal alerts about perceived fairness gaps or treatment differences. These things may all be real and true, but simply noticing them is one thing while ruminating on them in growing consternation is another.

When you do catch those first flames of resentment beginning to rise, seek instead to turn your attention away from the heat of comparison against other people and/or situations and back towards yourself and in seeking a way to respond better than you have previously. As I’ve covered before in Better is Better, your real challenge is to be a better version of you and not to worry about comparisons to others.

Your opportunity for gratitude here is two-fold. First, you succeeded in catching it early and preventing its further strengthening, which indeed is something to be grateful for. And second, you were able to shift your focus off other people and bring it back instead to your goal of self-development, another thing worth sending some thankfulness towards.

2)    Try to get ahead of resentment by tracking the things that most commonly provoke you towards feeling resentment. Maybe it’s the way Mama can more easily soothe Baby. Maybe it’s that your other friends with a new Baby can afford prolonged post-partum doula care, or have reliable relatives who are a constant helpful presence in their lives. Maybe it’s the way Mama simply rolls her eyes at you when you’re starting to lose your temper when struggling to move the car seats again. Regardless of what it is, becoming more aware of what usually sets you off into resentment land is a great step towards making some small changes to nip those things in the bud.

My recommendation here once you have this awareness would be to insert some concrete gratitude into the specifics of these triggers as early as possible. Share out loud your appreciation towards Mama and her great soothing skills. Acknowledge with a compliment your friend’s ability to deploy their resources towards their family. And, perhaps hardest of all, ask Mama to help you with the car seat switch or even simply ask her to do it instead while saying “I’m thankful that this is easier for you, I hate doing this particular task.” The key here is to explicitly share a compliment with the people in the situation that usually triggers you.

3)    To get even further ahead of resentment, try to incorporate a daily gratitude practice into your life. And yes, this is almost the same thing you’ll see in the “attitude of gratitude” stuff, but here I want you to explicitly put a lot of focus on Mama, Baby, and all the things that relate to your New Dad Life.

Some common examples here include a “10 Things” list that you make at the beginning or end of each day where you write out the things that you appreciate about Mama/Baby/New Dad Life. Another option would be have a “10 Statements” goal where you try to verbally compliment Mama on something positive you want to acknowledge. These things can be small and simple, like saying “Thanks for putting the dishes away” or “You’re so good at that.”

In fact, I’ll always recommend saying something akin to “You’re such a great Mom” to your partner as often as possible and link it to something you observed in the way she relates to Baby. The point here is to explicitly either write out or speak out loud these things you notice and intentionally do so with an appreciative feeling state behind it.

4)    Finally, lets address the very common experience of those times when you realize that the resentment has already snuck in and started to well up into your awareness. You missed the “prevention” phases, and are now fully into the roaring fire phase. What now?

STOP. Just come to a full STOP in your thinking. Do not allow it to continue, even and especially when all your thoughts happen to be clear and true reflections of a situation where you righteously feel like things aren’t fair or whatever. Full STOP. Take 3 deep breaths here. And now 3 more.

Sure, all those things are true, and it is unfair. But how is seething going to help? Remember, resentment is a thief, and it will keep on taking the longer you allow it to fester. So simply STOP the thief. And the best way to do so is reflect on all the OTHER things that are true that you can be grateful for, starting with the fact that you noticed your resentment was flaring up.

Continue to breath into the increasing spaciousness provided by gratitude and expand it out further. This is where your list or practice from option 4 above can be so helpful. Again, the task here is to be just as clear and explicit with the gratitude items as you were previously with the resentment ones.

 Regardless of how you choose to deploy these 4 “Stratitude” ideas or any others that you may find helpful, the point is to intentionally harness the power of gratitude and appreciation in your efforts to build a stronger foundation to support you and Mama’s lives together as parents and partners going forward. With these ingredients you’ll be able to grow together through any challenges you might face ahead, and without them resentment will surely creep in and rob you both of the chance to build a successful future together. What will you do today to bring more gratitude and appreciation into your relationship?