What if I Don’t Feel Grateful?

Normally, each November I write a daily gratitude post about all the wonderful things in my life that I’m grateful for. But this year…..I didn’t feel it, so I didn’t start the traditional posts. At first, I thought I was just rebelling against the “trend”, but after a couple days I realized that I really wasn’t feeling grateful at all…..and that concerned me. I understand intellectually how important gratitude is to healing the tender spaces and places in my life, and as I looked back at the posts from years past that were popping up in my Facebook memories, I missed that feeling of optimism that those posts represented.

So, I decided to be grateful and get back on track. And you know what? It didn’t actually happen. And that sort of made me feel worse about the whole thing, as if this inability to feel grateful was a signal of something really off in my life. When I find myself with a question or quandary in my life, I go into “research” mode. I begin to get curious about the topic and set out to uncover information that will help me navigate whatever problem or situation I’m facing. So, I decided to do the same here.

I’ve found curiosity to be one of the greatest superpowers that we humans have. For me, suspending judgement about the problem or the answer, and really getting curious about what might be out there, has led to great discoveries. The first place I started was with an understanding of what gratitude really is. I went to one of my favorite sources…..Brene Brown. Her book, “Atlas of the Heart” is a treasure. It’s like an encyclopedia of emotions with explanations, research findings…..all the things my geeky, curious heart could possibly want. What I discovered wasn’t all that surprising…..the research shows that gratitude is good for us, in all the ways we would expect…our physical health, and spiritual and emotional well-being. She further discussed an oft-accepted definition of gratitude that it is an “emotion that reflects our deep appreciation for what we value, what brings meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves and others.” Brene then talked about something I found interesting about gratitude. Although gratitude is an emotion, if we want to truly experience it and extract the most from it, we “must also make it a practice.” Brene puts it this way: “An attitude is a way of thinking; a practice is a way of doing, trying, failing, and trying again.”

That thought--that gratitude requires the trying, failing and trying again--gives me great comfort. On those days when I’m not “feeling” grateful, I can still practice being grateful….even if I’m not very good at it! I also did some research on Google (because you can find all sorts of things on Google) and found a really cool blog called simply Gratitude Blog. In that blog, the author mentions some ways to feel grateful when you don’t, and one of them reminded me of a time when I decided I needed to be more grateful. The tip is to start small….find just one or two small things that you appreciate in your life. I remember years ago when I took up a challenge to write in a gratitude journal every day. The first day’s challenge was to find 5 things to be grateful for, with the expectation that we would work up to 10 things each day by the end of the week. I wasn’t feeling very grateful, and my first entry was “I’m grateful I only have to find 5 things to be grateful for instead of 10”. I wasn’t all that proud of that entry, but I see now that the practice of gratitude allows for us to not be so good as we start, and that is certainly something I can sign up for.

I’ve decided that I want to find that deep appreciation and connection again, so I’m going to embark on a new gratitude challenge. I know that I won’t be great at it every day, and some days I may be down right ungrateful…..and that is part of it! If you’re interested in taking this challenge with me, I’d love to hear about what you’re finding to be grateful for, and what you’re learning in your gratitude practice along the way.

As we begin, I have a wonderful blessing that I found in a one of my favorites..a book called “Good Enough” by the marvelous Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie. I hope this fills your heart with the knowledge that we can find that deep appreciation and connection, even if we haven’t felt it for a while.

A Blessing for Beginning a New Spiritual Practice (page 6 of Good Enough)

Blessed are we who are trying a new thing, though we can’t quite see the whole of it. That’s the beauty of the life of faith. We start in the middle, at the heart center of an unspoken desire to live into the glimpse we’ve had of You and of Your goodness.

Blessed are we who ask You to be the guide as we begin to build from here and create a stronger, more flexible rule of life. Trusting that You are trying to foster life in us.

Blessed are we who remember that we will fall short. We will fail, but that doesn’t mean we are ruined. We simply pick up and begin again.

Blessed are we, willing to be beginnings all over again.