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One thing that’s helping me through this is gratitude. But gratitude has been so weaponized against us, I thought I’d say a little about how I think about it (and may write something more comprehensive sometime).


Basically, practicing “gratitude” is cultivating appreciation for what you have. The good, the nourishing, the life-giving, the blessings.

But in late-stage capitalism, practicing “gratitude” has come to mean using the good to deny yourself the right to acknowledge suffering. It is a process of shaming oneself for not exclusively feeling positive feelings because, as the gratitude shows you, you are so lucky and have so much so what the hell is wrong with you for being wounded or upset or deprived #toxicpositivity


Most of us have internalized some form of this. We are fed this so we won’t believe ourselves that we have legitimate human needs that go unmet while we are exploited for labor. It’s a form of victim-blaming.


If you find gratitude useful (and ONLY IF), try to consider it an expansion of your attention, not an erasure. Our brains are wired to prioritize threatening and negative information, so that we will act on that information to solve problems and improve our situation. Input that requires action is considered most important. You can practice incorporating into your awareness things that need no action, things that are okay or even good now, to help your brain have more complete data on the state of how you are.


That being said, the vast majority of the people I see clinically most desperately need validation for, and permission to have, the hard feelings. Gratitude will only add to your wellbeing if you are already allowed your pain.

Gratitude is not an erasure of suffering. Don’t let the normative culture around gratitude undermine your right to the full range of human experience and emotion. We can have abundant blessings AND corrosively unmet needs. And most of us do.


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