The Weight of Gratitude

Suraji Wagage, PhD, JD

We’ve all heard about the importance of being thankful for what we have, a message that becomes especially loud around the holidays. The myriad research-backed benefits of practicing gratitude seem almost too good to be true: happiness and improved mental health! Increased resilience! Healthier choices! Better immunity and physical health! Better communication! It’s no surprise that something of a gratitude industrial complex has sprung up to fill this space and feed our need to optimize ourselves with gratitude journals, notecards, calendars, candles, etc. emblazoned with cheery quotes about cultivating an “attitude of gratitude.” 

There is nothing wrong with being grateful. It’s true that we can fundamentally shift our perspective by making a habit of bringing to mind positive aspects of our experiences. It’s all too easy to focus almost exclusively on what we don’t have that we wish we had and what is going wrong instead of what is going right. Our brains are problem-solving machines that automatically latch onto the latest problem to solve, the latest lack or deficit, and dwell on it. This can be very helpful when actually solving problems, and less helpful when you’re up at 3AM stuck in a thought spiral about why you got passed over for that promotion and how your friend didn’t invite you to that party. Practicing gratitude can counter this natural pull toward focusing on the negative and on habituating to and thus taking for granted what we have. And it’s true that being thankful is a skill that can be cultivated over time and is worth cultivating. 

But not everyone reminds themselves to be thankful for what they have and automatically feels better. Many people have the thought, “I have so much to be grateful for!” and it is immediately followed by: “what is wrong with me, why can’t I appreciate what I have? I have so much! There are so many people with much worse problems than me.” We then feel shame and guilt for not being grateful enough, and for not feeling happy even though there is so much to be thankful for.

All too commonly, in my experience working with people in therapy, gratitude becomes another tool to invalidate our feelings and to tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” The more we tell ourselves we shouldn’t have the emotions we have, the worse we feel. And the more societal messaging we hear about how important it is to be grateful and how gratitude can change our lives, the more pressure we put on ourselves to be grateful. The more pressure we put on ourselves, the harder it is to actually feel thankful, and the worse we feel for coming up short and for still feeling unhappy even though we “should” be grateful.

So what do we do? I think the answer is to practice holding two conflicting emotions at once and recognizing that both are valid (another task that can be difficult for our problem-solving brains, which love neat categories and resolutions). It is okay to feel grateful for having a roof over your head, food to eat, and clothes to wear AND to feel upset about your car breaking down or having a fight with your partner. One does not negate the other. You are not ungrateful for having emotions other than gratitude. Having needs met does not insulate you from negative emotions.

Think of gratitude as adding more information to the picture– bringing to your attention positive things that you might not be noticing– rather than as a tool to subtract the feelings that you don’t want (e.g., “if I practice gratitude, I won’t feel sad anymore” or “if I have a lot to be thankful for, I shouldn’t be depressed”). And you don’t have to be grateful all the time, or even push yourself to practice gratitude if it doesn’t resonate with you. It’s okay to just feel the way you feel without trying to make yourself feel differently. And if you do want to practice being grateful, pair that “attitude of gratitude” with an attitude of acceptance for the emotions that you feel.