Once upon a time, a dear friend of mine became pregnant with her first child. As is the usual way, she didn’t spread the news until the first trimester was over in fear of an early miscarriage. In those early days, she told only her close family, including her sister and when she did, she added: “I am not allowing myself to be happy about it just yet, because you never know what might happen.”
Her very wise sister, who had before, experienced a miscarriage herself answered immediately: “Please! Be happy, grateful, and joyful about this new baby! Every minute and every day that he/she is here in your tummy is a moment of happiness. You do not know what will happen next so enjoy the now and let go of the future because there is nothing more you can do about it!”
Gratitude… The Holy Grail! … The state we are all told to look for and to access. Wake up in the morning and think of 3, 5, 10 things you are grateful for. It is said to change your life and make you happier. It seems simple, right? Get up in the morning and start listing. “I am grateful for waking up this morning. I am grateful for the sun outside. I am grateful for my home, or my family or my cat…” Whatever … it seems like most people could easily find 3 things at least… but the problem is not so much what to be thankful for it is HOW to be thankful for them. When you start to look beyond the surface, you realize that for many people, while finding things or reasons to be grateful is not that hard, letting themselves be grateful is a different issue altogether.
What is holding some of us back in being grateful? In one word: FEAR. Like my friend in the story, people say that they are afraid that if they let themselves be happy, content, full of joy, and appreciative of what they have, then they are setting themselves up for loss, disappointment, and sadness. It is as if all the good things that are happening to them right now were somehow a strike of luck, and if they start appreciating it, it could all be taken away. We fear that opening up to the feeling of gratitude makes us more vulnerable and we become afraid that we will lose it all. There are several reasons behind this: one is the idea of deserving something or not. We grew up in a culture where we are told that we must achieve at all costs. Be the best, have the most but it must also come at the price of hard work and effort. In this mindset, there are two results: you will either feel that what you have is impermanent as it is linked to your hard work, and the moment you stop trying your best you might lose it. If you have imposter syndrome, you might feel that you don’t deserve this and that it will be taken away from you and given to a righteous person at any time.
Not daring to be “too” happy about something is a way to protect yourself: if I don’t feel too ecstatic, too overjoyed, then I don’t have such a long way to fall in case something bad happens. If you let yourself feel happy, on top of the world, there is a backlining idea that there is nowhere to go but down. We try to avoid bad emotions like feeling crushed, embarrassed or disappointed by suppressing good ones.
The other enemy of gratitude is GUILT. “Why do I have this when my friend who is just as deserving as me is experiencing so much more hardship?” Sometimes we can feel that we are less deserving than someone else and we don’t understand why we have so much when someone else doesn’t and it can put us in a position where feeling grateful would feel wrong. So, we hold up the gratitude as a sign of solidarity. The truth is there is no deserving or not, no fairness or unfairness. What you happen to have at this moment to be grateful for just exists and all you need to do is accept it not question it.
We sometimes create guilt by trying to impose gratitude on ourselves: “I have so much, I MUST be thankful.”. “I have a roof over my head, I have a lovely home, I should be so appreciative that cleaning it after my family day in and day out should be a pleasure”. The last thing you need is to try and make yourself feel grateful for anything at all. While it is always good to bring awareness to all the good things in your life, if the feeling is not natural, do not impose it on yourself. Sometimes you don’t want to feel grateful, you are not in the right mood or state of mind. Trying to force gratitude is like trying to force love or admiration, it just doesn’t work. So, if you find that you have to try to convince yourself to be grateful, please stop right now. Breathe, refocus, and consider how much you hate cleaning the beautiful house/car/pool you are lucky to have! It is ok not to feel thankful all the time even when you know deep down that you are lucky to have what you have. Maybe some other time, when the house is clean and the children are asleep you will be better able to summon gratitude, and that’s ok! In a moment where you feel sad or upset adding a layer of guilt won't bring you any closer to gratitude! Gratitude is here to serve you not the other way around.
To sum things up: YES, the happiness we feel right now is only temporary and eventually EVERYTHING will be taken away from us. The people, the places, the things we love. Eventually, we will lose it all. Does the fact that things will end make them less valuable? On the contrary, it should make them even MORE, more valuable, more precious, and more worthy of our complete gratitude. When you hold your tiny baby in your arms, knowing they will be grown up way too soon makes the moment more precious, not less, when you look at the sunset with the person you love, knowing that one day you will part, makes the moment even more beautiful. The instability and the uncertainty of life are not only what makes being grateful more important, they are what makes it worthwhile in the first place. If all of it was ours to begin with, no questions asked, then gratitude would be useless and would not even need to be considered. Having something that, in that one perfect moment, makes you feel so happy, so complete, and refusing to let yourself appreciate it for fear of losing it is the real punishment you are putting on yourself.
When you start to practice gratitude, you won't only lift the weight of fate or doom off your shoulders, but you’ll also create a brighter vision of the world in your mind. Success calls to success, the more grateful you become the more things you will find to feel grateful for. Even mistakes and failures won't seem as bad and you’ll be more able to see them as opportunities to grow and learn. In a mindset where you don’t let yourself be thankful when disappointment occurs, your thinking will be something along the lines of: “I knew this was too good to be true.” “I knew I could not go on being so lucky/happy.” “It was meant to end sooner or later.”
When you feel good, celebrate every good time, every beautiful moment, a sunny morning, a starry sky, a smiling stranger on your way to work, a seat on a crowded train, a song you love on the speakers at the store…. How high you get doesn’t determine how low you might become. On the contrary, when you fill your heart and mind with positivity and gratefulness the lows won't be as low, and you will be able to see the solutions and possibilities where you would otherwise just see failure.
When you don’t feel good: receive and accept your situation and the fact that you cannot at this moment be grateful, even if you know that there are things in your life that are precious to you and that you would normally appreciate. It is just not the case at this given moment. Let yourself be upset and annoyed and angry if you need to. Just let yourself be, and welcome the feelings, instead of forcing them… you might just end up feeling grateful for the freedom you are allowing yourself to have.
Gratitude makes you stronger, not weaker. Because when you start seeing all the good around you, you become aware of all your resources and that is the mindset you will need to face life’s uncertainties at your best.
Gratitude fills your reserve of positivity, and sustain you when, inevitably, you hit a bump on the road.
Gratitude brings you to the present, “here and now” I am thankful, I am happy. No matter what happened in the past or what the future holds, this is NOW, this is HERE, and I am grateful.
So, let go of the fear and dare to be grateful! It won’t keep the bad things from happening, but it will ensure that you don’t miss out on the good ones!
Gaelle Chatenet, January 2025
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