An expression of gratitude - 30 day blogging challenge day 7

Wow, I came really close to missing today's blog post. I haven't been feeling well, lately, so my health is taking up most of my time. But, I'm here! And I'm ready to blog it up 😆

If you've been following along, this is day 7 on the 30 day blogging challenge that I committed myself to this month. If you haven't been following along, well, that's fine. Who cares? lol

Today is all about gratitude. Now, the actual challenge asked me to think of 3 people, specifically, to show gratitude toward. And I will be doing that in my real life more so than in this blog post. Because I think the recognition and conversation with those people is more meaningful, for them and for me.

So, this post is going to be more about musings on gratitude.

 

 

Regardless of how bad things get or how hard things get, we always have something to be grateful for. I'll catch flack for that statement but I don't really care. I stand by it. Even in the literally worst of times. I direct your attention, if you beg to differ, to the work of Viktor Frakl and I will just leave the conversation there 😉

But what is gratitude? How do we truly feel it and express it in our daily lives?

Is it enough to just say we are grateful for something? Is it enough to recognize even the smallest of our privileges in life?

But what if we can name it and recognize that we should be grateful for it, but we don't really feel grateful for it? (Whatever the "it" is in your particular situation).

Honestly, I think it's pretty common to not feel entirely grateful all the time.

Capitalism and Western ideals can be the enemy of gratitude

Before I launch into this, let me say one thing very clearly: I am not anti western society. I live in Canada and I'm very fucking grateful that I do. I just think there is always room for improvement and if we aren't critical of our societal structures we can put ourselves into a bad place. I am not a pro this or anti that. I am more a Taoist in philosophy so you're not gonna see me here trying to pull you down some rabbit hole to extremism. Respectfully, please refrain from trying to do that to me 😀

We can quite easily get caught up in our Western society and its list of things we "need" to be cool enough, pretty enough, powerful enough, smart enough, healthy enough, etc etc etc.

Always chasing the illusive idea of being "enough" can take us away from being able to feel grateful because we always feel that we are lacking. And, of course, our capitalist society will tell us we just need to buy another thing to make up for that difference. And when we can't afford the thing or a new thing comes along... you see where I'm going with this.

Gratitude and grief are not mutually exclusive

This is one of the things I have struggled with my entire life: The idea that I can still be grateful for what I do have even if I'm sad about what I do not have.

"Look on the bright side."

"But you still have so much to be grateful for."

"Wow, you sound so negative."

Well, sorry Sheila, I didn't mean to sound negative when I was grieving my mom dying or the loss of my job and my health...

Sheila isn't real, by the way 😆 But these were moments that people liked to remind me of what I had to be grateful for. And the Sheilas didn't mean any harm. They wanted to make sure I wasn't slipping into the grips of depression; they wanted to help lift me up. It hurt the Sheilas to see me sad and they just did their best to help.

But I took it to a deep place. I chastised myself for not feeling entirely grateful 100% of the time. I gave myself shit for being sad, for grieving, for wanting the things I'd lost or things I knew I'd never have.

I've learned, though, that denying those feelings of grief is not helpful. It just serves to compound the sadness inside. And giving ourselves more grief for how we experience the grief we already had... well that's just ludicrous!

Instead of giving ourselves more grief we should be giving ourselves more grace.

Allowing ourselves to hurt and to grieve opens up space for the gratitude to flow in.

And just because we're sad about one thing doesn't mean it cancels out the thing we're also happy about and grateful for. They can exist together. Sometimes we'll bathe in the things we are grateful for. And sometimes we will sit in the empty space of our grief and cry. It's ok.