Are you doing gratitude wrong?

Over the last few years, I have seen viral posts about how gratitude does not work, and that it is a form of bypassing and sugarcoating. Here's what these armchair philosophers and coaches are getting wrong.

Does practicing gratitude make you feel worse? Does it make you realize your privilege and induce guilt? Or perhaps it frustrates you because your troubles do not feel any less challenging! There is a chance that something is missing in your gratitude practice.

I invite you to reflect on your definition of gratitude, and what you think it is supposed to accomplish in your life. Notice how you practice gratitude - the process, the contents, the outcome.

And now, here is the mindfulness perspective informed by Buddhism.

Gratitude is about the process and not the outcome. This means that we do not practice gratitude as a means of getting rid of our troubles completely. It refers to paying attention to the present moment in its entirety. Most of us, when we are suffering, our experience of that pain makes us oblivious to the positives, strengths, and goodness that exists. When we practice gratitude mindfully, we expand our capacity to understand things fully.

Gratitude is about noticing our strengths and it offers us ground from which we can respond to suffering. I live with chronic pain. Some days, I do not have enough spoons to do the basics like showering or brushing my teeth. I remind myself that I am in charge of my schedule. I practice gratitude for this opportunity to take care of my needs and offer up a prayer for all those who do not have that privilege. I believe that everyone deserves rest and respect, and I know that everyone does not. If I did not practice gratitude with prayer, I do not think I would be able to rest with intention. There would be guilt lurking and neither my rest nor work would embody my values of compassion and wisdom.

Gratitude is not about ignoring suffering. It is about holding multitudes. It’s the recognition that joy and sorrow, success and failure, peace and turmoil can coexist within us. This concept aligns with the Buddhist understanding of impermanence (anicca) and the nature of suffering (dukkha). Through mindfulness, we learn to observe our experiences without attachment, allowing us to acknowledge and appreciate the richness of life in its entirety. When we practice gratitude mindfully, with wisdom, we can experience relief, encouragement, and motivation to keep going.

Gratitude is not just about our contexts, and must include the world at large. Sure, there may be times when we are so challenged that it is hard to find something positive in our lives. And we do not need to. We can zoom out of our circumstances and find something in the lives of other people to be grateful for. This practice is called Mudita or appreciative joy. In the Buddhist context, it is one of four key qualities said to take a practitioner to liberation. If this also feels hard, find something out there in the world. A child playing with a puppy, a ray of sunshine, a cool breeze, a splash of rain, and the smell of wet earth, clean water, strangers helping each other...the list is endless. This way of practicing makes us less self-centered. Quite the opposite of what we think gratitude is about, isn't it?

Gratitude can become an effective way of responding to the greater onslaught of suffering. In the Tibetan Logjong, the practice of mind training, one of the techniques is to practice gratitude for the suffering itself. When I first read this, my body felt on fire. THIS felt like spiritual bypassing - putting a positive spin on everything. Over time though, I have noticed that I grow the most in my suffering as long as I keep up with my daily meditation and contemplation practice.

In the summer of 2021, I developed a frozen shoulder. I have lived with chronic and excruciating pain since 2007, but nothing prepared me for the terrorizing pain with which I woke up every night, feeling like electricity was passing through my arm. Sid, my spouse, would wake up in fright with me because of my screaming as I rose out of my sleep. He would marvel as I would touch my shoulder and arm lovingly and whisper, "Shhhhhh....may your pain and suffering be eased. May this pain subside. May you be at peace..." I don't know if I was talking to myself or my shoulder, but it felt like the appropriate response. In the morning, I would feel immense gratitude for the Dharma and the practical tools it offers me to respond to suffering with love and wisdom. While I still have not regained full mobility of my arm, I have immense gratitude for what my arm can do.

Not practicing gratitude and loving-kindness at that moment would have made my pain feel a lot worse. I know this because, in the past, I have looked at my body as an adversary standing between me and the life I want. Today, I feel connected with my body as a friend. When my body is in pain, I can be present with it and soothe it. The aim is to be with, and not cure it. I can feel a semblance of gratitude for the lessons from my frozen shoulder that reminded me of impermanence and the universal suffering that all of us will experience - sickness, aging, and death. These lessons allow me to hold everything a little less tightly and reduce my attachment to ephemeral things.

Over the years, I have been grateful for the huge fights Sid and I have had. I have learned that the way we are both made, we need a storm to clear our path. It does not have to make sense to others, but we have learned to keep the faith during these moments of disconnection. The faith in the process, God, and each other.

Gratitude is a spectrum. It is not always about the most sparkly things. Sometimes, it can be about a break from suffering. It can be a momentary connection to the essence. My teacher, Lama Justin often reminds us that it is not about sitting in stoic silence for hours together. It can be about dipping into peace and stillness for a moment, several times a day. In that split second, allowing the openness, the nothingness, the stillness where there is no beginning or end, to manifest in our body can become the source of gratitude, inspiration, and reward for our intention and action.

Gratitude can show us where we need to put in work. Dana or generosity is a paramita, a wholesome quality to cultivate in our lives. When I practice gratitude, I am also aware that not everyone has access to the things I have. I make it my life's purpose to pay it forward. In my life, it is the gift of the Dharma. Having had a tough childhood marred by domestic violence, a terrible illness, the loss of a parent, and subsequent C-PTSD, I know the one thing that changed the trajectory of the downward spiral of my life has been my spiritual practice. Whether through my work as a therapist/coach, or a writer, or my roles as a spouse, friend, or family member, my only hope is to pass on the tools to other people, to live my life in a way that encourages others to do the same. This is not about ego or legacy, but rather about paying forward the gifts I have been fortunate to receive.

When I practice gratitude, I also face my resistance to giving freely. Sometimes it is about money, at other points, it is about my time/energy. I am always aware of the tension within myself, and gently, I work towards increasing my capacity to give. If I never acknowledge what I have, how can I ever practice giving?

Gratitude as an embodied process. Most of us are disconnected from our bodies. When we practice gratitude slowly and notice how it shows up in our bodies and impacts our breath, we connect a neural pathway from our brain to our body. What we remember with our mind, body, and spirit is more likely to have an impact on us than a purely half-hearted cognitive process. I get specific, and real slow.

Instead of saying, "I am grateful for the good day I had," I say, "I am grateful for the sunshine, and a walk by the lake while having butterscotch ice cream." As I remember this, I drop into my body and allow a memory to be created. To make it stronger, I write it in my journal and put a date on it. I might make a little drawing next to it. On a bad day, I re-visit my entries. It is a gift that keeps on giving.

This is your invitation: Break free from the conceptual binaries you might have about gratitude, and allow it to transform your thoughts, speech, action, and life. I would love to hear your thoughts on the gratitude practice!

Questions to contemplate:

• What did you learn from this post about gratitude?
• What are you going to add to your practice?
• What else can I add to this post to make it stronger?
• What do you disagree with?