In 1997, I didn’t have a grateful bone in my body. My life was nothing but pain upon more pain upon more pain. My brother’s suicide. A friend’s death due to AIDS. My grandfather’s death from cancer. My crumbling marriage. I wanted nothing more than to give the world and any sick, sad creator behind it the bird. Most days, I spiraled into deep despair.
Fast forward to 2012. While I’d spent years learning to practice gratitude, my life was again built upon pain. This time, my battle with Lyme disease, rather than loss, was the culprit. Not wanting to repeat the Great Grief of 1997, I engaged in a daily gratitude practice despite feeling completely ungrateful.
I had a few rules for this practice: I had to be legitimately grateful for whatever I’d chosen, and I couldn’t use this to gaslight myself or dismiss my pain. I completed this practice just before dinner as a sort of grace. Most of my early attempts started with, “My life sucks, and I’m grateful for…” Somedays it was the fact that I was breathing, that I’d made it through the day, or that I’d seen a bluebird on my morning walk. The observations were small, yet they kept me alive when the future seemed incredibly bleak. Gratitude disrupted my gloom and reminded me that our stories about what happens to us are malleable.
Practicing gratitude when I’m not grateful hasn’t just helped me cope with hard times. It’s made me a better writer. The practice forces me to attend to all that’s around me. My keen observations help me insert bright spots in dark material, which allows it to transcend my default perceptions.
This week, some Americans are jubilantly celebrating Thanksgiving while others mourn election results, difficult life events, or Thanksgiving itself. It’s a holiday of both/and, which perfectly describes the times we’re living in. As a dear friend recently said, “Our house is on fire, but many houses are on fire right now.” So, what do we do with this?
Gratitude is easy when life’s going well. If that’s your experience, make your list and embrace the goodness you can easily access.
If you’re not feeling it, here are four ways of practicing gratitude when you’re not feeling grateful.
Focus on your breath: Whether you think about it or not, your lungs automatically breathe in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. The automatic nature of this bodily function is miraculous.
Go outside: Leave your house and intentionally look for something beautiful. You can ask spirit/universe/higher power/your powers of observation to gift you with a surprise. Then, see what happens.
Focus on suffering: This one might sound counterintuitive, but connecting with all the people who currently suffer your affliction can make you feel less alone—which can bring sweet relief when life is at its heaviest.
Do something for someone else: One of the biggest reasons life sucks when tough things happen is that we feel powerless over the situation or our feelings about it. Doing something for others empowers you, which breaks this cycle.
That last one will be the focus of the next three weeks. The full details will appear in next week’s newsletter, but here’s a quick preview. Between Tuesday, December 3, 2024 (Giving Tuesday) and December 19th, you can earn tickets for my annual Giveaway for Good extravaganza by donating $25 or more to a nonprofit that supports the social good or a nonprofit writing center. Tickets will be included in my end-of-year drawings for prizes, like paid subscriptions to this Substack, coaching sessions, and even a manuscript evaluation. The more you donate, the more prizes I offer, and the more chances you have to win. Last year, we raised $12,777 in donations for local communities and writers. I’d love to exceed last year’s total.
But before we get there, let me share three ways practicing gratitude can impact your writing life.
If dark scenes or a dark story are bringing you down, or your beloved writing group has asked you to include more levity in your manuscript, try this:
- Identify who or what helped you. While this list can include other people or external things, you can also focus on a mental or physical fortitude you drew upon. If it feels like no one helped you back then, make a list of who’s helping you now.
- Journal about the insights you now have about this event. Those insights are reminders that you are more than what happened to you.
- Take it further by writing about how surviving this helped you survive something even harder. For example, while Lyme disease sucked a royal blue egg, I knew I could survive it because I’d already survived my brother’s death and everything else that happened in 1997.
- Throw yourself an impromptu Gloria-Gainer-style “I Have Survived, and I Will Survive” dance party. That dance party alone will open your eyes to something you’ve yet to uncover.
- Look for ways to incorporate what you’ve discovered into your scenes. While a memoir involves what happened back then, a good one is infused with what you the writer now know. See if you can hint at redemption or plant an easter egg that at the end of the book will make it seem like the narrator’s transformation was inevitable.
If you still don’t have something, focus on the light. Notice how the sun continues to rise even on a shitty day. Search for glimmers of light in your manuscript and see how they impact the narrator’s feelings. Notice how focusing on the light makes you feel now and how this work sustains you and helps you always write on.
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