Beyond the Turkey: Americans Are Rethinking Gratitude, History, & Inclusion

For many people in the United States, the fourth Thursday of November has long been a familiar ritual. Families gather around tables, turkey and pumpkin pie appear without fail, and gratitude is spoken out loud, before the real focus of attention becomes the food, football, and Black Friday deals.

But something interesting is happening in America right now. The cultural conversation around Thanksgiving is shifting.

People are beginning to sit with far more complex layers of meaning beneath the tradition: the history of the day, who it honors and who it erases, and what it really means to practice gratitude in a world shaped by inequality, trauma, and significant historical wounds.

The Danger of Gratitude Without Context

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotional tools we have. Neuroscience confirms that practising gratitude consistently rewires the brain toward resilience, optimism, emotional balance, and better relationships. It is foundational to mental wellbeing.

But gratitude becomes shallow when it asks us to ignore pain, bypass systemic issues, or cover over what needs to be acknowledged and repaired. “Be grateful, it could be worse” is not the same as genuine, embodied gratitude. One suppresses; the other liberates.

This tension is now a visible part of public conversation in the U.S., where many communities, especially Indigenous peoples, remind the nation that Thanksgiving has a complicated past. For them, this date represents not a peaceful feast but the beginning of centuries of displacement, violence, and erasure. Across several states, the day is now marked not only as Thanksgiving, but also as National Day of Mourning — a call to hold space for history that is often omitted from mainstream narratives.

A New Model of Collective Reflection: Holding Both Celebration & Accountability

What is emerging now is a more mature perspective, one in which people are learning to hold both joy and grief, celebration and responsibility, comfort and discomfort. These are emotional muscles powerful leaders must develop.

Across companies, universities and community spaces in the U.S., there is an increasing emphasis on:

• land acknowledgments to recognize Indigenous stewardship of land
• education around historical realities rather than romanticized myths
• conversations about privilege, power, identity and belonging
• reframing gratitude as interdependence rather than individual achievement
• broadening the lens beyond family to community, inclusion and service

This shift matters because culture moves through language. The stories we choose to tell, and the ones we courageously update, shape what becomes possible.

For years, the narrative of success has celebrated the self-made individual. The new lens recognizes that no one rises alone. Every achievement sits on the shoulders of countless others: caregivers, teachers, frontline workers, communities, and histories that made space for us.

What This Means for Global Women Leaders

Although this is unfolding in an American cultural context, the lesson is profoundly global.

Women leaders, especially those working across geographies, cultures, and systems that were not designed with us in mind, are used to navigating complexity.

• We know what it feels like to celebrate milestones while also holding the exhaustion beneath them.
• We understand the weight of emotional labor and invisible contributions.
• We understand that progress and pain can coexist.

So the question becomes: How do we practice gratitude in a way that honors truth, inclusion, and shared humanity?

Here are a few reflections that may serve us, wherever we live and lead:

1. Expand the circle of who we acknowledge

Instead of only thanking those visible in the spotlight, we can intentionally recognize:

• the team members doing quiet, unseen work
• the caregivers at home making our leadership possible
• the mentors and allies lifting others up
• the workers in supply chains, logistics and service roles who hold society together

2. Make space for discomfort

Real inclusion asks us to challenge simplified narratives. It requires us to ask whose voice is missing, whose history was forgotten, who is not in the room and why.

As leaders, we can model the courage to say: “I want to understand more. Tell me the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable.”

3. Honor rest and reflection as leadership practice

In a world saturated with urgency, the ability to pause is a radical act. Reflection is how we integrate experience and grow capacity. Rest is how we sustain the work long-term. Gratitude deepens when we slow down enough to feel it.

4. Connect gratitude to action

The most meaningful gratitude moves beyond words into choices:

• hiring with intention
• designing equitable systems
• redistributing opportunities
• advocating for fairness
• protecting mental wellbeing
• supporting communities not out of charity, but shared responsibility

This Moment Invites Us to Lead Differently

The shift happening in America around Thanksgiving invites us to replace nostalgia with nuance, politeness with courage, and tradition with transformation. It asks us to build spaces where truth is not feared but welcomed, where gratitude includes accountability, and where our shared humanity sits at the centre of everything we do.

As we move into the final stretch of the year, perhaps the most powerful question we can ask is not: “What are you grateful for?” but rather: “How will your gratitude change the world around you?”

Because the world does not need more performance. It needs more presence. It does not need more perfection. It needs more empathy. It needs leaders willing to hold complexity with grace.

And if we can do that both individually and collectively, then gratitude becomes far more than tradition. It becomes transformation.