Not feeling Grateful? It’s OK, nothing is wrong with you.

I'm not really into gratitude lists, if I'm being honest. Shocked to hear this from a yoga teacher and therapist? This statement has been a difficult realization for me to face about myself that started several years ago.

A little background about my personal and professional life that has influenced my experience. I’ve trained in Bhakti Yoga (devotion to love), psychology and meditation practices for over 15 years. My temperament has always been pretty optimistic about life and looking in from the outside, I have a lot to be grateful for. I have a lot of privilege in this life and I am not unaware of this. And, after going through my own lived experience of several traumas at one time, I was left in the deepest grief and depression I could imagine. I was pulled into a place that was dark. My world had been flipped both internally and externally. Then the holidays came. With holidays come a lot of expectations, whether we consciously feed into them or not.

And this is where my realization came from.

I learned a lot about how I treat myself in hard times, how society responds to those in a difficult place and how friends/family hold space (or don’t) for us. Outside of the holidays I could hide and protect my pain. But once the holidays came, I noticed a shift and experienced a lot of spiritual bypassing in my community, people telling me to focus on what I do have, reminding me that others have it worse and the list goes on. This was either coming from people around me or my own inner dialogue. And, I know that most of this came from a well intentioned place. I know it was people (or myself) trying to protect me from my pain, but it did not work. It hurt and felt dismissive, whether it was coming from another person, society or myself. It left me feeling worse and on top of that, filled with guilt and shame that I was struggling to feel grateful.

I hear this a lot from clients (and, felt myself for a very long time and still do at times), “How can I be grateful when there’s so much negative going on”, “I don’t feel gratitude and I feel guilty about that", and “Gratitude lists don’t work for me.”

Here’s what I’ve learned. When the invitation to be grateful feels premature to us (not meeting us where we are at) or feels forced on us (by others, society or our own inner dialogue of what we “should focus on”) it can contribute to us feeling worse. Especially if the invitation is coming from a place of dismissing ones feelings or a form of "spiritual bypassing" (e.g. I shouldn't feel this way because I should be grateful since I have these other good things to focus on) - not healthy/helpful!

While I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with gratitude and being thankful (trust me, when it’s from a genuine place, it can feel incredible and be powerful for our mental and emotional health), I also don’t think it should be forced on people. And, the holidays tend to force this on us by carrying the expectation that we should set aside how we are really feeling, embrace the holiday traditions and focus on what we are grateful for.

Like I said above, when gratitude is premature or feels forced on us in anyway, it can actually feel like an abandonment of our feelings and our experiences.

Anything that feels forced, is not good for our wellbeing. I also don’t believe in ‘fake ‘til you make it’. So, when genuine gratitude is not available to me, I like to reflect on these four questions:

1. What went well today?

2. What did I do well today?

3. What can I do better for myself tomorrow?

4. What can I do better for others tomorrow?

There are several reasons why I prefer these reflections to gratitude lists. First, they invite us to move past the negativity bias in our brains by reflecting on the things that went well in our day. Our brains naturally orient to negativity for our survival and when we’ve experienced trauma or a difficult experience, our brains can go into overdrive and become hyper-vigilant in orienting to negativity as a way to protect us. But, when we’re physically safe, it’s important for us to also orient to things that go well for us to help balance out this level of vigilance. Be reasonable with this step, sometimes what went well in our day is as simple as “I didn’t burn the toast” or “I had the energy to make my bed”. And regarding what “you” did well today, it might be “fed myself” or “took care of the dog”. Small wins are valid and important to acknowledge.

Second, by being curious about what went well, we’re looking at the bigger picture instead of reflecting internally, which requires active emotional energy that we might not have. This step provides an opportunity to reflect with some emotional space and perspective vs. having to go inward and drudge up something that might not be there.

Third, the questions provide space to reflect on what we are in control of and have agency over when we think about what we did well and what we can do better tomorrow (for ourselves and for others). Knowing we have choices and agency in our lives is important to our mental and emotional wellbeing. And, we are wired for connection so by reflecting on our relationship with ourselves and with others, it can help us feel more connected.

My hope in sharing this with you is to not dismiss the power of gratitude, but to give you permission to release any shame or guilt if you don’t have access to it right now. Be gentle with yourself - meet yourself where you are at. You are doing the best you can with what you have.

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