How can I be grateful when I don't feel grateful?

Feb 15, 2024

During a discussion in one of my recent workshops on what makes gratitude challenging, a young teacher – whom I will call Brooke – asked, with more than a hint of frustration in her voice, “How can we be grateful when there is so much happening in the world that we should feel sad and angry about?” As I thanked her for her question, I met the pain in her eyes with my own pain about all the atrocities and violence we are witnessing right now, and with initial agreement that gratitude seems to be the least likely response in these times of seemingly needless loss and destruction.

Brooke continued by saying that she’s a climate activist and believed that trying to feel grateful in the midst of such global devastation and loss of hope for the future was just like whitewashing all the things we should feel ashamed of, or even accepting the status quo and doing nothing. This prompted another participant, Sam, to pipe up in support of Brooke, and proclaim that gratitude is just another form of ‘toxic positivity’ (defined as “the pressure to only display positive emotions, feelings, reactions, or experiences, thus invalidating human experience.”)

These kinds of questions often come up from my audiences and I wholeheartedly welcome them. Most of us would feel like we are losing our authenticity or integrity when we try to reach for gratitude in the midst of such concerns or while experiencing other emotions that are in complete contrast – fear, humiliation, envy, disappointment, hopelessness, depression, grief, pain, anger – just to name a few.

Also, we can often think that a recommendation for gratitude means that we should feel grateful all the time and in response to all situations. Or perhaps worse than this, we might mistakenly think that feeling grateful is the same as feeling positive.

One of the dangers of seeing gratitude as just a feeling is that it is inevitably in competition with other feelings. Moreover, even if we are trying to feel grateful in difficult situations, there is a danger in labelling gratitude as a wonderful emotion and all the others we struggle to find gratitude in as ‘bad’. To do so is not only to call into question our authenticity when we judge how we feel some emotions and not others, but also to deny the very part of human existence that gives us access to our knowledge and wisdom. It’s through all our feelings that we have a ticket to the soul, to self-awareness. Our feelings that are far from gratitude can also guide us back to gratitude, by showing us where we have strayed, taken things for granted, held on to resentment, for example.

If we judge ourselves for not feeling grateful we might in fact inadvertently be pushing gratitude further away because of the overlays of negativity and guilt and shame. This is made more complex if we equate gratitude with positivity as we feel that to be grateful we need to be in a positive state, or as Sam rightly pointed out, we are entering the domain of toxic positivity by only validating the parts of our experience that are positive and denying all the rest.

One of the ways forward is to look at the difference between being grateful and feeling grateful.

When gratitude lives in our being it is so much more than a feeling. It becomes part of our overall outlook or our inner attitude in response to life’s experiences. Our inner attitude of gratitude flows to our thoughts, our feelings, behaviour, and words. However, while it’s true that our inner attitude is influencing how we feel, it is not stopping us from feeling a whole lot of seemingly conflicting emotions at the same time. Nor is it about replacing ‘negative’ feelings with feelings of gratitude.

One of the inherent characteristics of gratitude is that it is about the giver, the receiver and the gift. This is what makes it completely different from simply feeling positive. Gratitude embraces a sense of giftedness. We have a sense of awe, wonder, or surprise in what we are receiving, and this motivates us to want to give back in some way, though not necessarily reciprocally. In this sense, gratitude is highly relational as it inspires us to think of who we have received from and how we can express our thanks. To me the power of gratitude lies in its potential to connect with others, and to make our acts of gratitude more about affirming what we receive from them.

Brooke, for example, could have an inner attitude of gratitude for the environment and this sense of giftedness would strengthen her desire to be an even greater activist. Then there would be no conflict with her feeling a whole array of other emotions and nor would there be an urge to replace rage and anger about environmental injustices with gratitude. Gratitude could be a more solid part of her being, and while influencing how she feels, would not compete with other seemingly contrary feelings.

In my research, I have discovered that one of the most powerful ways to cultivate an inner attitude of gratitude – to make it more of our being – is to take it up as a conscious practice in what I call ‘A State of Preparedness’. Here we prepare our being by reflecting on what we are grateful for before we embark on anything we need to do. This means that we reflect on the innermost attitude we are bringing to the day ahead, to the meeting we are about to go into, to the task we are about to perform, and choose to approach it with gratitude.

In other contexts where I have researched A State of Preparedness, participants report greater resilience, wellbeing, and connectedness, even while going through challenging situations or experiencing difficult emotions. So, for example, if Brooke was on her way to a protest and filled her being with gratitude for the other activists, things in the environmental movement that are going well, and the support she gets from some of her colleagues, she would have a greater sense that she is not alone in all of this.

There are many other answers to this very important question, and I will be exploring these more fully at the event outlined below. For now, may I humbly suggest that we be true to our feelings, while at the same time cultivating being grateful through a greater sense of giftedness?

I'm Not There Yet

Discussion about this post