I flunked at gratitude
Several years ago, my friend Heather sent me a care package. In it was a little gratitude journal called 101 Joys Make a Rainbow. The idea was that every day you’d record something you were grateful for and then fold the page. When you were done the booklet, you’d have an entire rainbow of “joys.”
This is what the booklet was supposed to look like:
This is what my booklet looked like:
I know. Pathetic. My journal looked exactly how I felt in life: Depressed. Tired. Deflated.
I mean, I really tried to be grateful each day. I really did. But I later realized I failed at it because I had the wrong motivation: I was trying to use gratitude to heal my depression and anxiety. I was trying to apply gratitude like I’d apply an antibiotic cream, and it.just.didn’t.work.
Every once in a while I take out that half-filled rainbow journal and read what I wrote in it. It makes me feel bitter-sweet. Sweet because I know I was trying. Sweet because the things I wrote down truly are “gifts” in my life that I can only NOW appreciate.
But I also feel sad. Because I know that I couldn’t fully appreciate the joys in my life back then because I first couldn’t appreciate myself.
“I know that I couldn’t fully appreciate the joys in my life back then because I couldn’t first appreciate myself.”
I started “The Gratitude Rebel” on the heels of another failed “Gratitude” project—one where I listed something I was grateful for each day for a full year. Once again, gratitude didn’t “stick.” It didn’t make a true difference. I mean, shouldn’t it have? I mean, so, so many people say gratitude helps. And as someone who no longer hates herself, I would agree that gratitude can help. Looking for the positive in who you are; seeing the bright spots in your day; looking for the things you did right and not wrong. These are all helpful tools.
But not if you hate yourself. Not if you dislike the person you were created to be.
When you hate yourself, there is no room for anything else. It’s like there is this thick brick wall that stands between your heart and everything else that is good. Nothing good can come in. But nothing bad can come out either. Because you’ve already DECIDED. Decided that you’re no good. Decided that you’re bad. That you suck. That you don’t deserve joy or goodness or gifts. It’s like you’re wearing cowboy boots with huge spurs and you’ve dug those spurs in so deep, you’re unwilling to move off that identity of “hated.”
“It’s like there is this thick brick wall that stands between your heart and everything else that is good.”
Getting off the “self-hatred” track is not easy. But just as a decision to hate yourself is keeping you where you are, a decision to be willing to see yourself differently is key. You must be willing to get off your self-hatred podium. You must be willing to change your mind about how you see yourself. And if you’re not willing, perhaps you can be “willing to be willing.”*
If you find that joy and gratitude are alluding you, you’ve probably made a decision about yourself somewhere.
Don’t underestimate the power of decision. It is the rudder of your life. But just as you’ve decided to keep love out; you can also decide to let love in. Don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect to be perfect at it. But maybe allow yourself to take the bricks of self-hatred down, one decision at a time, so that slowly, slowly a rainbow of joys can emerge.
Beyond Ourselves, Catharine Marshall, p.78