Toxic Gratitude

Gratitude gets talked about a lot in this holiday season. But, me being me, I’m always interested in the angles that are less examined. Questions like - is there a shadow side to so much gratitude? Can gratitude tip over into the world of toxic positivity? Can a focus on gratitude become an unhealthy obsession where choosing gratitude wears away at your body’s instinctual ability to tell you that something is not right? That something is just off?
These are just some of the questions I'm exploring in this episode!

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Transcript

Welcome to A Life Well LIT! 

I’m Brielle Goheen and I am obsessed with the question of how to live a life that is fully LIT up from the inside out. I believe that knowing our purpose and defining our why is the key to becoming sustainably and intentionally productive, taking targeted actions toward our vision of a fully LIT life. My most foundational purpose is to dance - metaphorically speaking and sometimes literally - in the bright light of freedom and to invite others to dance with me. The spaces I dance in are creativity & music and crafting a peacefully productive life. For me, a Life Well LIT looks like pursuing wholeness and healing in all areas of life, and constantly challenging myself to ask a new question and think a new thought. The only way to do this sustainably is to craft systems that support the dance of freedom, the LITlife that I have chosen to pursue. If you want to come along for the dance, yours will undoubtedly look very different than mine, but you are so welcome here! I can’t wait to see you living your own version of A Life Well LIT.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Gratitude lately. For those of you who don’t know I live in Canada, and our Thanksgiving celebrations happened quite a while ago now - in early October. For Americans, the Thanksgiving celebrations happen at least a full month later, in November. And even though I live in a different country, it is almost impossible to not be at least somewhat aware of American Thanksgiving because this is when all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales happen. It’s the time of year that I find out just how many email lists I’m actually subscribed to, because I hear from every single one of them over the American Thanksgiving Weekend. It’s impossible for Canadians to not notice when American Thanksgiving comes around. And then after the Thanksgiving season is over, the December holiday season begins. So I always feel like October and November are their own season. A 6 week long season of Gratitude before the December holiday season begins - which is, of course, full of its own traditions of gratitude and giving. I love this annual rhythm - this time set aside to remember the importance of gratitude.

Gratitude gets talked about a lot these days and there are a lot of simple and powerful practices that can help us attune our attention to all the many things we have to be thankful for.  Things that we take for granted until we set aside a moment of silence to just remember how much good is actually all around us. But, me being me, I’m always interested in the pieces that aren’t getting talked about so much. Questions like - is there a shadow side to so much gratitude? Can gratitude tip over into the world of toxic positivity? Can a focus on gratitude become an unhealthy obsession where choosing gratitude wears away at your body’s instinctual ability to tell you that something is not right? That something is just off?

I’ve been mulling over these questions especially in the past week because of something I’ll tell you about in a minute. But, first some background for you about me that some of you might resonate with. I have a complex relationship with positivity. I am naturally a very very positive and optimistic person and I have been since I was a kid. I kept a card for years - I actually probably still have it somewhere in deep in my bin of special memories … But it was a card that a couple university students gave to me for my 5th birthday. Obviously, when you’re 5, receiving a card from university students is the most special thing in the entire world, so it meant a lot to me and I kept it. On the front it had a sweet little cartoon puppy - I can still picture it! - saying “Happy 5th Birthday” on a yellow balloon and inside they had written, “You have the best smile in the world. Keep smiling!” It was so kind of them, and I treasured that card for years and I pulled it out so often to read it that it became quite worn. So being happy and positive and optimistic is just something that has been part of my natural state for as long as I can remember.

But over the years, I’ve had quite a number of people tell me that they initially reacted quite negatively to my positivity the first time they met me because it didn’t seem genuine. Usually this was said to me in the larger context of them making the point that, y’know, then as they got to know me they realized that this is really just my natural state. It made me wonder how many people never got to that Step 2 and just stopped with being bothered by my optimism. Now, in some ways, that wondering is neither here nor there. It doesn’t really matter because it’s completely natural that certain people are drawn to certain people and not to others. And so it doesn’t really matter. But it brings about a strange double mindedness in me because, a huge part of the reason that I lead with positivity is because there is so much pain and heaviness in the world and because I feel it so deeply myself. And you never know what pain a person is carrying that they might need a little bit of light to help unburden their spirit for a moment. It’s because I feel the pain and heaviness of what it takes to just exist as a human in relationship with other humans, and the world, and your own self, that I made a commitment, even unconsciously as a kid, to choose optimism whenever possible and to lead with positivity.

It makes me think of that Robin Williams quote where he said, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel that.” There’s something so beautiful about this expression of love and care for other people, not wanting anyone to feel pain in your presence. And yet, in trying to create an environment where we protect other people from experiencing their sadness or grappling with feelings of worthlessness, we create an environment that is maybe too controlled. And maybe such a controlled environment actually robs people of the opportunity to feel their emotions completely so that they can reach the other side of them. Maybe it robs people of the dignity of the complicated human experience of contrast. Allowing contrast instead of covering it over with only light. Contrasting the light and the dark in the open, in relationship with other people which is where so much healing happens. Contrasting the feelings of worthlessness with the feeling of being completely loved and embraced and accepted anyway. And maybe trying to craft an environment where we protect other people from feeling their sadness or grappling with “what’s the point of all this” is really a defence mechanism against allowing our own sadness or existential questioning to just exist in all the contrast that comes with it. Maybe positivity can be a defence against feeling what life is like - against experiencing what a life well LIT actually brings to light in all of its contrast.

So I have wondered for myself, when has my commitment to optimism hindered connection? And has it even harmed me or has it harmed other people? Has that been the active ingredient that stopped me from accepting that someone close to me was actually not trustworthy? Or when has my positivity made someone else feel like their full breadth of emotions were not welcome in the conversation? When has my gratitude been a shield to block what is? And if, in the process of growth we need both sun and rain to be healthy, has Gratitude at times been a kind of umbrella that shuts out the rain and hinders healthy growth?

These are very current questions in my mind because, not only am I in the midst of this Gratitude and Giving season of late fall/early winter right now as I’m recording this podcast, but I have also had an assignment around the subject of Gratitude in a class I’m taking. The assignment seemed simple at first but, as with many things, it got complicated for me awfully quickly. The assignment was to begin each day noticing what is and expressing gratitude for it. I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but I’ve been doing short gratitude lists every single morning for quite a while now, so I felt like this was going to be the easiest assignment ever. Typically as part of my morning routine, I will either just jot down 5 things I’m thankful for, or I’ll write 3 things I’m thankful for about myself, 3 things that I’m thankful for relating to other people or relationships that I have, and 3 things I’m especially thankful exist in natural world. This process, this practice, has changed my life in some beautiful and really profound ways. It has changed the way that I see things and the way that I notice things.

But my Gratitude assignment for this class had a bit of an unexpected twist. I wasn’t just asked to “express gratitude.” I was specifically instructed to, “Take time to notice what is. Then express gratitude for it.” Now, I don’t think I’m alone in this, but when I sit down to meditate or notice what is, it’s never the positive things that flood my mind. It is the stressful things. First the to-do items. Then the guilt about all I haven’t gotten done yet. And then that leads to thinking about relational strains and tensions. And pretty soon I’ve arrived at the big stuff. How angry I am at so many things. The powerful uncontrollable forces that seem to just rule the world that are so far beyond mine and anyone else’s control - things like climate change and corruption and oppression and war and the killing of children. I feel helpless.

 And so, ever since beginning my Gratitude practice by first just settling my mind and noticing what is - if I really let myself feel it, it just seems clashingly trite to jump from there into a gratitude list where I’m singling out my morning cup of coffee, or a new showerhead in the bathroom, or getting to take the girls to Canada’s Wonderland (which, for any non-Canadians listening, is an amazing and frivolous theme park near Toronto). And suddenly my simple little gratitude practice started getting complicated. As I said before, I love when things get complicated. It’s such fertile soil for exploration and experimentation. I love planting a few new seeds of ideas in unknown territories just to see what will grow and what fruits the plants will yield.

I felt like I was in completely new terrain, beginning my gratitude lists not from a place of shallow optimism, but from a place of deep sadness and helplessness and even rage. I was supposed to notice what is and find gratefulness within it. But I couldn’t possibly be thankful for what was coming up. You can’t be thankful for corrupt political landscapes that cause war. You can’t be thankful for homelessness or the housing insecurity here in Canada, or the fear of economic instability, or even just the little things like simple relational tensions. And I couldn’t gloss over that stuff with toxic positivity. There is something so obviously wrong about jumping from thick injustice to thin gratitude. It feels so gross to put two sentiments next to one another, like: “On the one hand, the housing crisis and increasing rates of homelessness are a real problem in Canada, especially with winter coming. But on the other hand, I’m thankful I have a home.” That is so obviously unhelpful and self-centred and sweeps a very real issue under the rug with a self-centred statement of toxic gratitude. Even though, of course, I am thankful that I have a home.

As I wrestled through this - allowing what is to come to the surface more and more, but also somehow trying to work toward gratitude, I realized that this is part of the point. Working toward gratitude. Not pretending that I’ve arrived there yet. Not teleporting from the difficult things to the gratitude. But also not endlessly wallowing in the state of helplessness (although, I have to say for contrasts’ sake, from time to time a good wallow feels very good and is very appropriate).

What I’m trying to say is that when I started my gratitude lists from a place of surface-level positivity, my thankfulness lists looked a lot more like avoidant or toxic positivity. That being said, even surface-y shallow gratitude is a deeper level than taking everything for granted for sure, and that’s part of the reason the regular practice of gratitude taught me so much. Because it taught me how to not take everything for granted. But there was a deeper level. Because when I started my gratitude practice from this place of really opening myself up to the deepest layers of seeing and letting myself really feel the pain and the heaviness of life for what it is - it moved me to dig deeper to find a gratitude that exists even further below the surface than the layer of pain or sadness or worthlessness or anger. A layer of gratitude that underlies those things and holds them in their right place.

I found that as I dug deep for gratitude amidst sitting with what is, I found myself coming to a deep appreciation and thankfulness for unexpected things. For example, deep gratitude for the clarity of my burning anger. The full humanity of feeling that alert system going off like sirens when things aren’t right. The way it burns away my timidity and my cowardice. The way it makes my tongue hot with truth that just needs to be spoken. The way it drives me away from complacency and toward action. And I could feel how honouring that emotion with gratitude left me feeling more whole, more integrated, more alive. And in my places of deepest personal wounding, I found gratitude for the resilience I have developed to bear those things that never seem to scab over properly before being reopened. Resilience to continue living not in fear but in freedom despite everything. Resilience to keep hope alive. But not an avoidant hope - a hope that comes from calling out the BS and calling forth something new. I found a deep appreciation for my stubborn, delusional, embarrassing belief in the power of being reborn - not an escape into an otherworldly divinity, but a painful rebirth into a fully sensual experience of humanity.

If hindsight is 20/20 and we always seem to find that there was good growth that began in even the worst situations, no matter how devoid the situations themselves are of good - if we can see that in our 20/20 hindsight, this must mean that we can choose to believe that the treasures of growth are available to be found even here, even now, even in this. Even when we barely believe it. But maybe gratitude is not even so much about always being on the look out for life lessons in everything, but more about choosing to consciously set the focus of our lens on who we will choose to become over the course of all this beautiful, and all this ugly, and all this terrifying, all of this breathtaking, all that is, all. When life is beautiful and full of ease, who are we becoming? When everything is falling apart, when all the seams are coming undone, who are we becoming? When we’re deeply lonely, who are we becoming as we develop a relationship with that loneliness? When we are respected and given every opportunity we desire, who are we becoming? Can we become people who welcome all that is? Can we become people who accept everything with thankfulness for this gift of being alive - fully alive in all the unavoidable complexity, all the unavoidable contrast,of it all? Can we become people who embrace all sides of the contrasts with open arms? Can we learn to express gratitude in all situations in a way that doesn’t bypass or skate on the surface of what is, but that provides deep and nourishing soil for roots to grow in as we are fed by every feeling, every instinct, every last bit of us we are welcoming.

Maybe being full of gratitude has less to do with thankfulness and more to do with presence. Maybe that’s all gratitude is on the practical level, at the layer of practice - just being present. Gratitude isn’t, and it cannot be, just looking on the bright side and ignoring the shadow. It is choosing to be fully present with what is and bring that life, our life force, in an abundance of presence with whatever is; bringing everything into the light. All contrasts welcome.

These are fledgling thoughts in many ways. I am looking forward to continuing to flesh out these things in my mind as thoughts become enfleshed through living life. I’m sure I will share again on this subject of gratitude as I continue learning to feel these things more deeply and then as I learn to articulate these felt senses back into words. And so I’m going to close with some words from a master of deep sight, a master of words that shoot straight to the heart. This is a poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

The same stream of life that runs
 through my veins night and day runs
 through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy
Through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass 
And breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
Of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world
of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
Dancing in my blood this moment.

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, I would appreciate it so much if you shared it with someone else who might find some encouragement in it as well. And if you haven’t already, subscribe so that you’re the first to know each time a new episode is released. I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that I love creating systems that support people in living a fully LITlife. One of the areas that a lot of people struggle with is their Email Inbox. When I say a lot, I mean, a lot a lot - over 40% of email users struggle with hundreds of unread emails. So I’ve created a training to teach you how to beat Inbox Overwhelm once and for all and get that coveted Inbox Zero in 60 minutes or less. It gets even better. The training is completely 100% free. Check it out at www.workwithbriellegoheen.com . You can also find the link in the show notes. I have hundreds of simple systems just like this that can help you become sustainably productive, get things done with ease, and craft a life that truly supports you in the things that matter most to you. So check out the Inbox Zero training, and if you like it, connect with me! There’s so much more where that came from! Until next time remember: the worlds we imagine are the worlds we build. So imagine the best, most beautiful one you can and get to work building it!