Victor Frankl’s book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ changed my life immediately and crystallized an important idea that has never left me since.

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychologist who survived 3 years as a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War Two. He managed to find beauty, love, and meaning in the suffering there. He did so by realising that our response to our personal circumstance is entirely our own choice. If he could find meaning in a Nazi extermination camp, maybe we can find meaning in 21st-century Britain.

I read this book at a difficult time in my own life and felt humbled by Frankl’s response to his experience in Auschwitz. ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ is about hope rather than gratitude (and many other things besides), and yet reading his story helped me enormously with both.

I don’t believe I found this book by accident. Our then 17-year daughter Sash was in a psychiatric unit. She had been there for three months and appeared to be getting worse, not better. She was finding new and terrifying ways to try and end her life. I think I was unconsciously seeking a way to navigate my own pain and suffering by staring into the abyss of a pain so vast and incomprehensible my own was almost paltry by comparison. And ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ became my conduit through this hell.

I remember being struck dumb by Frankl’s gratitude and humbled by his ability to find the positive. He writes about observing the beauty of the snow sparkling in the sunlight, and the majesty of nature outside the camp. He writes about feeling grateful when he was allowed to sit for a while and take a small break from hard camp labour. He is grateful when a cook gives him a little extra soup. He writes about his gratitude for hearing the haunting music of a violin that he hears.

For most people it’s easier to feel grateful when life is good, and everything is going well. The trouble is we all experience hard times in our lives. And in hard times it’s even more important to find gratitude. Gratitude is linked to improved physical health. When you feel good physically, along with having more energy and stamina to handle stress, your sense of wellbeing improves too. It’s pretty clear that Frankl’s outlook, his gratitude, and his ability to choose how to frame his experience of the world was a huge part of what kept him alive.

‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ had a profound influence on me. Since reading it, I’ve adopted the mantra ‘And this too shall pass’ and put it into practice. I also began a journal. It wasn’t specifically a ‘gratitude’ journal; it was odd notes about thoughts, feelings, impressions, conversations, and Sash. I am so happy that I kept these notes because when I read over them, I feel joy and the gratitude all over again for all of the beautiful, kind and thoughtful ways people expressed their love and care for us during that dark time.

We were supported by so many people in so many small, medium, large and huge ways. All have left a lasting impression. I can’t begin to list them all, so here are just a few:

• Lots of friends and family visited Sash. One particular friend regularly drove a car full Sash's friends to visit her. She'd pack a picnic and drive all the way to Colchester and Northampton.

• One friend took me to every away basketball match of the season to watch my son Izee play, allowing me to create some normality for him, and to be present for him at a time where I couldn’t concentrate enough to drive a car safely

• I was grateful for quiet text messages, littler digital strokes and touches to remind me people were thinking of us

• I was grateful every day when I woke and Sash was still alive.

• I was grateful for every visit we had when Sash was communicative and affectionate

• I was grateful I could see past her cuts and scratches and bruises to our beautiful girl who was still there.

One thing we can all agree is it's easier to focus on the things that are difficult, the things that are broken and the things that we don't have. This way of thinking brings us more of the same. Choosing to focus our attention on what is good, what we do have, what we can control gives us all a much bigger fighting chance of being happy, suffering less and finding joy EVEN in dark times. Choose Gratitude.