It is hard to believe it’s already Thanksgiving – the holiday where we celebrate the blessings of the past year.

This year has been marked by the pandemic, affecting us in many different ways: compromising the health of many people, causing financial losses, taking the lives of many people, causing burnout of healthcare professionals on the front lines, essential workers and parents, compromising education of children, causing isolation and loneliness for many individuals, to name a few challenges. 

It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to reflect on this year with a mindset of gratitude. How can we be grateful for such tragedy and loss? While I do not have the answer to this question, I will humbly offer a suggestion. 

We all have the ability to choose our response to a given situation. We all have the ability to recall our big “WHY?”, to cultivate the love and appreciation towards and from our loved ones, our community and to continue to live with purpose. 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist and author 
Man’s Search for Meaning

It is not a surprise that symptoms of anxiety and depression have increased considerably in the US this year, during Covid-19. I will be addressing these in my upcoming newsletters, and sharing how generalized anxiety and major depression are diagnosed. I will also share evidence-based modalities for treatment, including integrative medicine modalities and supplements. 

Whether you are doing a small Thanksgiving with your loved ones that you live with, a small outdoor gathering, a zoom Thanksgiving, or another version of this holiday with your loved ones, I invite you to recall all of the things you are grateful for in this moment, your loved ones, your purpose, and how you can continue to push and shift your mindset to one of gratitude. I am not talking about suppressing or denying the things that we perceive as negative, but finding a way to move towards acceptance of life as it is, and then focusing on changing things that are in our control for the better.