This week, a remarkable person died: K\u00e4the, our family\u2019s old neighbour in Marburg, Germany. She was 102 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
K\u00e4the was generous in her appraisal of others, always seeing the best in people, or, where that was not always possible, she sought to understand the reasons behind others\u2019 failings, and could easily forgive them. A farmer\u2019s daughter, she was hard-working, humble, and self reliant, appreciative of what she could harvest from her garden or collect out in nature, preparing most of her family\u2019s meals on her old wood oven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What stood out to me the most was that she was grateful: for having emerged from the century\u2019s adversities with a modest house and garden, for a good, honest husband, and healthy and happy children, grandchildren, and later great-grandchilden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her final years she was bed-bound, and still she kept finding beauty around her: when she had visitors (and she frequently had), she asked after their children and grandchildren and enjoyed hearing of their adventures, she enjoyed the food that was prepared for her, and the small bouquets of wildflowers people brought. She smiled with sparkly eyes, she sang songs. Her unique grace, acceptance and gratitude is what people will remember about her, as well as the fullness and completeness of her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it is easy to see that her genuinely positive outlook was key to creating that fullness, especially in being able to find acceptance and appreciation for whatever life threw at her, and while I love that that was her reality – I can, at the same time, find so much wrong with the currently popular advice, especially, but not exclusively, directed at women, to \u201cpractice gratitude\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s why: suggesting that someone should feel grateful – often for something only tangentially related – can easily be used to minimize a person\u2019s real struggles: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re overwhelmed, are not getting the help you need, you feel lonely? Be grateful your children are so healthy and energetic!\u201d \u201cYou are ill, you\u2019re scared and sad? Imagine how much harder it would be if you didn\u2019t have good health insurance!\u201d \u201cYou feel you\u2019ve made all the wrong decisions, and now find yourself stuck in a soul-destroying job? At least you don\u2019t have to worry about money.\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This at-least-ism can be a way of not listening, of deflecting and dismissing the very real loneliness, sadness or hopelessness of the experience. And when the external demand for gratitude becomes internalized, it\u2019s the fastest route to self-incrimination and isolation: \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me that I cannot prioritize gratitude for the healthy children, the good insurance, or the financial stability?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you. You aren\u2019t ready yet to feel grateful, because other, more immediate emotions want to be fully felt first. Unless these primary emotions are acknowledged and addressed, the road to gratitude is not accessible. Further, if such a \u201cgratitude bandaid\u201d is applied to unresolved struggles, it has the same effect as putting a bandaid on an infected wound: all the messiness continues to unfold underneath, and when its destructive force turns inward, it adds a new layer of conflict: the disappointment in oneself for failing at gratitude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, if you\u2019ve been at the receiving end of the well-intended but misguided advice to practice gratefulness, remember this: you probably didn\u2019t need that reminder. You most likely know what you can be grateful for and, intellectually, you probably already are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You also understand that now may not yet be the time to fully feel that. Trust that you will experience gratefulness more strongly when you remain open to its presence – and *only once* there is space for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, whatever it is you are feeling right now: give yourself the gift of non-judgmental empathy, and acknowledge the truth of your experience in all its difficulty and human messiness. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week, a remarkable person died: K\u00e4the, our family\u2019s old neighbour in Marburg, Germany. She was 102 years old. K\u00e4the was generous in her appraisal of others, always seeing the best in people, or, where that was not always possible, she sought to understand the reasons behind others\u2019 failings, and could easily forgive them. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevenravens.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}