So, after the response to last week’s blog I can see that our collective, misplaced guilt is still a raging issue. Certainly bittersweet to know that I’m not alone here.  The more I read through the responses the deeper I dove into the concept of forced gratitude - a topic I’ve touched on before, but I don’t think I’ve every truly grasped. I just knew that I hated being told that I had so much to be grateful for when all I could see was everything that I’d lost. And that’s certainly part of it, but it’s also so much more.

We should absolutely have gratitude for all the good in our lives. Focusing on the good helps to lift us up, buoy our spirits and drive us forward with hope. Gratitude on its own is an incredibly powerful motivator, pushing us to give back and maintain a sense of positivity. The problems occur when it becomes a false sense of positivity - when the gratitude is used to force negative emotions down.  

The PERFECT example of this is any sentence that begins with “at least…”

“At least you were able to get pregnant.”

“At least she’s healthy.”

“At least you have another child.”

“At least you have your husband/wive’s support.”

If I had my way the combination of the words ‘at' and ‘least’ would be stricken from all human language. Those five letters are the epitome of forced gratitude: shove down the perceived negative reality to focus on the positive. And yes! We can be grateful that we are pregnant, or have a healthy child, or a living child or a spouse. But the second our gratitude for them is built on the foundation of strife, trauma or loss we are unwittingly sowing the seeds of guilt and resentment in the very same soil from which we are hoping to cultivate growth. 

We shouldn’t be grateful for something or someone because we have lost something else. The loss taints the gratitude, it becomes forced and instead of being a motivator for good it weighs us down with confusion.

Because we should be grateful, right? Sure, our child is sick or gone and this certainly isn’t the life we had envisioned years ago, but those “at least” statements aren’t wrong. Shouldn’t our losses make us that much more grateful for the good?

Potentially unpopular opinion here, but I’m going to give that question a resounding: Nope.

Relieve yourself of the weight of that guilt, of that forced gratitude. Yes, the power of the word ‘and’ works here. We can acknowledge our pain AND also be grateful. But it is so much more than that. Actually, you know what? ‘And’ can eff all the way off in this conversation. ‘And’ has its place to be sure, it is not here. The path to less guilt has to begin with actually cutting the tether between our loss and fortunes.  One does not have to have anything to do with the other. I would argue that they should be two completely different sentences - replace ‘and’ with a period and you are closer to the right path.

This is not the life I envisioned.

I am grateful for the good in the life that I have. 

Both statements are true. They do not need to have any correlation to each other whatsoever to remain true. 

Look, I can find something to feel guilty about in just about every action I have ever taken in my life. I am so tired of feeling guilty. I’m tired of second-guessing myself, of ‘should-ing’ myself, of irrationally holding myself responsible for situations in which I have little to no control. The source of this guilt is not solely forced gratitude but it is a piece of it and it’s the first step on my road to untethering my many, many anchors. 

I want to be happy again. 

This is a sentence I’ve circled around for years but struggled to hold onto. I’ve put in the work I thought was necessary, but happy has, for so long, felt just out of reach. Maybe I just haven’t wanted it badly enough. Maybe I need new medication. Unclear, what I do know is that as I sit here writing this I am choosing to give myself permission to find the joy in the life I’ve worked so hard to cultivate. Good things are happening and I want to appreciate them - not because I should, not because of my past, but because I deserve to enjoy and appreciate the good for being good.

No, ‘at least’, no ‘and’, just because. Period.