Sasza Lohrey

Hello, hello, thanks for tuning in to this new series of the BBXX podcast. We wanted to bring you more content, specifically more BBXX original content. And we’re using this as a chance to experiment with different topics, different formats, short format, longer format, casual interviews, more formal interviews, and a bit more fun stuff. So this new series will bring you mainly content from what I am referring to as the food for thought series, which explores different terms and terminology, or questions that might be particularly relevant to now, it might elaborate on something specific from one of our main interviews. Or it might just dive deeper into question that people have been asking me or that I’ve been wondering about myself. But we’ll also include things from fun ratings and reviews for books, movies, other podcasts, etc. To live interviews, and informal interviews with more people, perhaps such as yourself, talking more about personal narrative, and personal experiences that have shaped ourselves, our lives and our relationships. 

Because as much as there is to be learned from us from bx sex or any expert, we have just as much that can be learned from all of you, and from each other. Hi, I’m Sasza Lohrey, I’m the founder of BBXX, and I am here to share a bit of food for thought with you. Today, we’re going to be talking about as we love, love, love operational definitions, terms and terminology. Today, we’re going to be talking about the difference between gratefulness and thankfulness. So first, we tend to use these a bit interchangeably. We don’t really think about it until we’re going around the dinner table on Thanksgiving to share what we’re thankful about. Or if we have a gratitude journal, which have become extremely popular and are extremely impactful. We share a few things from that day that we’re grateful for. But what exactly is the difference between these two things? So the two different ways that I like to think about distinguishing these terms is that grateful pneus being grateful for something is more about an explicitly positive experience, versus being thankful for something is a bit more, almost kind of expressing thanks for the lack of a negative experience. And being grateful again, is more often targeted towards a person or a specific gesture or experience or favor. While being thankful for something I tend to think of being more circumstantial. So let’s think about examples here. If somebody does me a favor, a friend picks me up from the airport, or, you know, they have lent me something or helped out with something, they were there for me. When I needed them. I am grateful that they came to the airport to pick me up. It’s expressing appreciation to that person for a specific thing. So I’m so grateful for your help today. I’m so grateful that we were able to blah, blah, blah, that we were able to meet up.

 I’m so grateful that I have you as an amazing friend, versus I’m so thankful to have met you that occurrence or that circumstance that we know each other that we met that’s not something that’s as much within our control. We can control asking somebody for a favor or they have control over deciding to return that favor. Wow. Things that we’re thankful for tend to be circumstances that happen or don’t happen. So I am thankful to have my health, I am thankful for my family. Again, I didn’t choose them, but I’m so happy that I have them, I’m expressing things in a different way. With gratitude, I’m expressing things by showing appreciation with being thankful for something, it almost could be replaced by thankfully, in some circumstances, particularly when it means having avoided something negative. So perhaps my health isn’t in great condition, somebody goes, or I go in for an operation, and everything goes well, or maybe there was a complication, but everything turned out, okay. And that’s a perfect example of when you could be thankful that everything turned out, okay.

You know, maybe you can be grateful for the doctor who took the day off of vacation to come in and do the surgery. But you can be thankful for the fact that you have access to health care, that there weren’t any more severe complications, and that everything turned out okay in the end. And so that’s an example of where it’s more about the lack of a negative outcome being a specific way that we tend to show things where you can replace it with thankfully, thankfully, the operation turned out, okay, there was a complication, but thankfully, you know, she’s healthy. So those are kind of the two ways that I tend to differentiate the two words being grateful or being thankful, again, to me grateful is a bit more specific to a person to an act of kindness, and to something a bit more within our control. Oh, and being grateful, again, is generally about a positive experience or occurrence, explicitly positive, whereas being thankful, was generally more circumstantial. It’s not something that is particularly under our control. It’s more something that has happened to us. And we are expressing things for being in that situation, or having access to that thing. It’s a circumstance. And it’s a bit more neutral, because it’s a broader scope than the specific favors specific person specific kind of act of kindness. It’s a bit more broad. And it does include as well, being thankful for a lack of a negative experience in a way as well. 

So if somebody breaks into your house, thankfully, they didn’t find my computer under the bed. But you wouldn’t say I’m so you know, I’m grateful to you the robber for not having found my computer under the bed. So hopefully, that helps you a bit in terms of how to show thanks in two different ways how to express gratitude towards people, how to show your appreciation, and how to remind yourself to be thankful for your circumstances. So thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of food for thought. If you don’t already, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when we come out with new episodes. And to just take one moment of your time to show your support by subscribing, scrolling down to the bottom of the podcast where you can leave a rating and write a review, and perhaps even to share this with one or a few friends who you think could benefit from it. Because who can’t benefit from better understanding themselves so that they can connect deeper with other people as a result.