Say Thank You.

Saying thank you when you are grateful for something is important.

Saying thank you when you aren’t grateful is lying. 

Saying thank you to someone who has said or done something that has contributed to your life is more than just polite, it is a useful communication tool.

One of the key understandings of Nonviolent Communication is that everything we say and do is an attempt to meet a need.  It is needs-based communicating.  Another is that one of the core needs for humans is to be able to contribute.  

This idea of contributing isn’t simply to be nice, it is driven by our biology.  Humans are pack animals.  In order to feel safe (evolving from a time when it was to actually be safe).  We must know that we can contribute to the pack.  So the pack will need us.  So we will be safe out there in the world.  

Following this thread of thinking, we don’t ever do anything for others.  We do it to meet our need to contribute.  Ultimately, for our safety.  Don’t look for logic, because the conditions of our culture have changed while our biochemistry and evolutionary psychology has not.

Not quite as romantic as the movies would have us believe.  [Don’t get me started on how bad movies are for creating healthy and long-lasting relationships.]

Of course, I might make chicken soup ‘for you’. Don’t be fooled —the reason I am taking the time and making the effort is because it meets my own need for contribution and your well-being.  However, if you are vegan, and you won’t eat it, then these needs of mine are not being met by this strategy.  Yet, your need for care might be met.  And you might acknowledge it by saying thank you.  

The only way we can know in our personal relationships if we have contributed, is if we hear a thank you —in some kind of way.  Thank you is acknowledgement to another that their attempt to meet their need for contribution has been met.  

Let’s be clear about the language we use.  

In the case of the chicken soup, I would hope that you let me know what needs you are acknowledging.  It is important here because I want to contribute to your well-being, and if you don’t communicate to me that my gesture is not meeting that need, I will continue to do it, I will send over something you have no use for —I am getting a thank you after all.  If you are clear about how much it means to you that I care, yet you just give away the soup I make, then we can strategize together what other ways I might actually contribute to your well-being.

It is when you use thank you to be nice when communication gets confusing.  

Often I witness parents instruct their children to say thank you when it is crystal clear that the child is not grateful for what just happened.  The parent usually is.  In this case, they are teaching their children that what they say doesn’t matter —and that being honest takes a back seat to being polite.  Said another way, and to be a bit dramatic, to lie.  

A better solution for teaching this to your kids is for the parent to offer the acknowledgement of gratitude —including what they are grateful for as a model for behavior you value.   

Kids tend to do what we do or model for them, not what we tell them to do anyway.

My encouragement is to “over thank you”.  

What I mean by this is to acknowledge the gifts and contributions you have received from people often.  Repeat your gratitudes when you see or remember  the things that have made your life more wonderful.  For example, every now and then when I am in my closet and I see the shelf that Steve put up 5 years ago, I will take a picture, send it to him with a big thank you.  I do that with many, many things.  I do it with many people who have contributed to my life in all kinds of ways.  Ultimately this is one more flavor of a gratitude practice.

One more thing I want to highlight in this topic of saying thank you.  It is okay, and even valuable to want to receive a thank you of some kind.  Often we do things (remember we do them to meet our need to contribute) and don’t hear back if it did, indeed, make a difference.  In those cases, I encourage you to ask if it did.  I am not suggesting you go to your person and say, “I didn’t hear a thank you!” in that kind of whiny tone.  I am suggesting that you let them know that you are curious if what you said or did had value to them.  Even revealing that it matters to you if it did, because that was your intention.  If you are feeling mad, it would not be the time to enter into this dialog.  Likely in that moment you are thinking that a person should thank you.  That they did something wrong by not doing so.  If you connect more deeply to your need for acknowledgment, you can make the request with open heartedness.

Another one of the fun things Steve and I do to up our gratitude game is what we call ‘fishing’.  We just ask each other.  If I am at his place and he is using something I gave him, I might just ask him, “Where did you get that Steve?”  He tells me he got it from me, and I get another thank you.  We do it pretty regularly.  It not only meets our needs for acknowledgment and gratitude, belonging and care, we laugh and laugh.

Say thank you only when you mean it and repeat often.