UnCURABLE | Part 6
Why Gratitude Matters More Than Ever
(Especially When Life Feels Uncertain)
Aaron Hartman MD
November 26, 2025
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The holidays have a way of magnifying everything: the joy, the stress, the noise, the loneliness, the gratitude, the fear. For many people, this season doesn’t feel calm or cozy. It feels like trying to keep everyone afloat while you’re barely staying above water yourself.
And if you’re walking through uncertainty with your health or your family, gratitude can feel like a nice idea… for someone else.
But this year, a memory came back to me at the exact moment I needed the reminder.
The Boy Who Lived
Anna isn’t our only miracle.
When our son Khalil was eight, I got a call from EMS. They told me (in that eerily calm phone language) that his head had been caught in an elevator. They said it looked crushed. They were rushing him to the pediatric trauma center.
Becky wasn’t home. She wasn’t even in Virginia. She was halfway across the country.
She was helpless because she couldn’t get to him.
And I was helpless because Becky wasn’t here.
There are moments as a parent (or just a human) when you don’t rise to the occasion. You just move. You go to the hospital. You talk to the surgeons. You sign the papers. You pray the elevator didn’t take your child’s life.
By some miracle, it stopped an inch before it did, leaving a scar as a reminder that he lived when he shouldn’t have. (Any Harry Potter fans out there?)
He had 90-plus percent damage to his left facial nerve. His face was swollen and paralyzed. We didn’t know if he’d smile again … or eat normally … or recover at all.
Later, when he healed enough to move his face, he figured out he could mimic the old paralysis. He’d drop that side of his mouth and look at Becky with this exaggerated expression … and it would hit her in the exact place that remembered the trauma. He thought it was hilarious. She did not.
I’m telling you this because gratitude isn’t about pretending life isn’t hard. Sometimes it’s about remembering the things (and the people) who carried you when you couldn’t carry yourself.
Gratitude Shows You What You Missed the First Time
Years before Khalil’s accident, when Anna was young, Becky became the quiet engine behind nearly every major shift in our family’s health. She
was the one reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She was the one replacing pantry staples. She was the one digging through therapies I’d never heard of.
Honestly, she was out ahead of me by a couple of years. I was still spraying Roundup on the lawn in 2012. She was already thinking about organics and soil health.
At the time, I didn’t fully appreciate it. Looking back, almost everything that changed Anna’s trajectory came from seeds she planted long before I understood why they mattered.
Gratitude doesn’t just make you feel good. It helps you see clearly.
Why Gratitude Matters When Life Feels Uncertain
If you’re dealing with chronic symptoms,
navigating a medical maze, or trying to make decisions when you’re exhausted, gratitude might feel like the last tool in the box.
But physiologically, it’s one of the most powerful.
Gratitude creates a micro-moment of safety. And safety shifts your biology.
It lowers stress hormones and softens the limbic system. It pulls your nervous system out of fight-or-flight so your body can repair what it’s been trying to fix all along.
You don’t need to force anything. You don’t need to be cheerful. You don’t need to ignore your reality. You just need a moment — a breath — where your brain senses, “Right now, I’m okay.”
That moment opens doors.
You don’t need to force anything. You don’t need to be cheerful. You don’t need to ignore your reality. You just need a moment — a breath — where your brain senses, “Right now, I’m okay.”
The Science of Gratitude (In Plain Language)
1. It calms the stress response.
Feelings of safety tell your body it’s allowed to heal.
2. It builds resilience.
People who practice gratitude don’t spiral as quickly when symptoms flare or life shifts.
3. It strengthens connection.
Your body responds to connection — immune function, hormones, and sleep all depend on it.
This isn’t theory for me. I’ve seen it in my daughter, my son, my wife, my patients, and in the quiet moments of my own life.
Three Simple Gratitude Practices You Can Actually Do
1. The 60-Second “Highlight Someone” Moment
One text.
One sentence.
One person who showed up for you.
That’s enough.
2. The Gratitude Pause Before Hard Decisions
Before choosing a food, a treatment, or your next step … pause.
Name one thing you’re grateful for.
It will help your nervous system settle so you can think clearly.
3. The Family Gratitude Three
At dinner, in the car, during the holiday chaos — each person names three small things from the week.
It’s simple, grounding, and works even when things don’t feel okay.
When Gratitude Feels Impossible
If you’re in a hard season, gratitude can feel like climbing a mountain in the dark.
You don’t have to feel grateful to begin. You don’t have to do it perfectly. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine.
I’ve seen this in myself and in my patients: gratitude rarely comes in a big emotional wave. If you wait to feel it, it may never happen. Gratitude is something you choose to do … and then get surprised when you feel it after.
A Gentle Invitation: Create Safety in Your Home (Free Resource)
One of the patterns I’ve seen over and over — in my family and in my clinic — is that healing begins with safety.
Emotional safety.
Relational safety.
And yes, physical safety.
Sometimes gratitude helps create that feeling from the inside out. Sometimes the people in your life help create it. And sometimes, the place you live is part of the equation.
If you’re working to make your home feel calmer, cleaner, and more supportive to your health (especially during the stress of the holidays) Becky and I created a simple free micro-course called Creating a Healthy Home.
It focuses on the physical side of safety:
- cleaner air
- cleaner water
- fewer toxins
- a sleep environment your nervous system can actually rest in
There’s no cost and no catch. It’s just a resource we wish every family had.
Access the Free “Creating a Healthy Home” Micro-Course
A Final Thought
This Thanksgiving, you don’t need a perfect attitude or a perfect story. You don’t need to reinvent yourself. You don’t need to be grateful for everything.
You just need a few moments when you remember what (AND WHO) helped carry you through.
Sometimes that’s enough to help your body take the next step toward healing.
Discover the full story behind Dr. Hartman’s methods.
His new book, UnCURABLE: From Hopeless Diagnosis to Defying All Odds, reveals the principles that helped thousands of patients — and his own daughter — heal when the system had no answers.
