Cultivate authentic, unforced gratitude that lasts (Part 2 of 6 in the Sound Mind Series)
This is week 2 of 6 from the Sound Mind Series. Our goal is to implement practices that can keep us mentally strong and refreshed all year long.
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Have you ever told a kid they should be grateful? There they sit, wrinkling their nose up over a meal you sweat over for an hour, and the privileges of their little buttoned-up life overwhelm you, and you say something like, “Do you have any idea how many kids around the world will go to bed starving tonight? You should be grateful.”
Have you ever known this tactic to be useful? I haven’t. And I have tried and tried.
I use this illustration because I think sometimes we become convinced we can force-feed gratitude into our own brains, and we feel guilt when it doesn’t happen. We ask ourselves questions like, Why am I not happier? Why do I feel discontent? Why do I not feel what I think I’m supposed to feel as a _____ (fill in the blank with Christian, mother, etc.)?
I would like to take a different approach with gratitude that I hope will help you to set aside any guilt and to chart a path toward a more natural (not forced) experience with joy.
First, your thoughts about gratitude will never be powerful enough to overwhelm feelings of sadness, anger, loneliness, or fear. That is not their intended job. Gratitude doesn’t happen in place of those “negative” emotions. It happens in parallel to them. We will never eradicate all hard emotions, and that’s okay. They serve a purpose in our lives. So, dear human, let’s stop beating ourselves up for feeling like a human. In fact, the longer we prolong allowing an emotion to flow and have its moment, the farther away we will be from feeling free of it and released into joy.
Second, instead of thinking of gratitude as an emotion to force, let’s think of it as a process we cultivate. Imagine a trickling river that has eroded a canyon over time, and when the rains come, it fills up and the rushing waters erode that canyon further. When I practice gratitude, I am carving a path for joy to flow through where I didn’t see or feel it before. It’s not immediate, but the results are cumulative. The path gets wider and easier to access as we practice.
Third, gratitude enables us to experience the joy of what is already good in our lives. A gratitude practice isn't meant to be make believe. In order to experience it in an authentic way, we have to notice what is actually happening around us. I find it helpful to start really small. If I only express gratitude daily for my house, food, and family, I’m going to get bored quickly and not practice (sorry family, it’s just true.) What’s more useful for integrating gratitude in every hour of your day is waking up to the good that’s right there in the minuscule moments. We act on it before we feel the emotion.
I will give you an example from my desk right now. I feel gratitude for the delicious iced latte on my desk, and even more so for the walk I took with my daughter to purchase it. I feel gratitude for the laughter coming from another daughter’s room as she spends time with her friends. That kind of gratitude is always changing, always fresh, and, as a bonus, it helps me to be present.
Maybe seeing the good is terribly difficult right now. I get that. Even in our darkest moments, we can be grateful for the promises of God yet to be fulfilled. I remember reading the words of missionary Jim Elliot, who said that, at a minimum, every day he could be thankful for being created and for eternal salvation. When it’s hardest to find the blessings, gratitude becomes an act of faith that reminds us that good that is seen and felt will come again, because God is faithful.
Question: Where can you find good right now in this moment? What small joyful things are begging your attention? Make a designated space in your phone or a journal to take note all week long and see how your thoughts and emotions shift as a result. Or use the Dawn devotional app, which has an interactive Daily Practice that incorporates daily gratitude.
More inspiration for your week…
