Gratitude (without the bypassing)
I remember being in a guest lecture session with Robert Biswas-Diener at UEL (University of East London, while doing my MSc – Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology) and him saying something along the lines of (paraphrasing) ‘you couldn’t pay me to tell a full-grown adult with a complex life that, you know what, the key to your happiness is to make a list of Three Good Things.’ I think I said “YES!” out loud while hearing this. For those not in the positive psychology space, “Three Good Things” is a classic intervention based on the idea of re-balancing our inherent negativity bias (our tendency to notice bad things more readily that the positive) and cultivating a sense of gratitude. The first wave in positive psychology was all about saying, hey positive emotions have value and are worth being studied. Now with some time gone by, we take it as given that positive experiences and ways of being have value, and that most of us want to live a life that feels meaningful and positive (in whatever way we define that.)
I tend to agree with Biswas-Diener, and quite honestly feel it can be dismissive at best to suggest to someone who is struggling to perhaps try being grateful. But we don’t quite want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here – we know gratitude is a valuable psychological resource, with many knock-on benefits. So how do we work with this? The second and third waves of positive psychology may provide some clues, as well as what I would call a ‘coaching way of engaging’ with the idea. The second wave of positive psychology is about embracing the negative side of life simultaneously; allowing that all lives inherently contain positive and negative experiences (and mixed experiences) and in fact we tend to get a lot of benefit and growth from our challenges and more ambiguous experiences. A classic example is having children, which I can agree is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the best and most meaningful. The third wave is about embracing a diversity of experiences and sources of information, looking closer at social and cultural influences and phenomenological data. Which is that we can’t look at our own experiences of ‘what is the good life’ in a context-free way and a purely positivistic methodology loses some of the depth (for example, does rating your level of life satisfaction from 1-10 give a full picture of your life? [for me, I’d argue probably not for me individually, but may provide useful info across large samples.])
So how do we do this? How do we engage with gratitude in a way that isn’t invalidating the hard parts of life, or telling people to be happy in the face of huge structural inequalities?
Here are some ideas.
1. Explore the idea of gratitude as a ‘noticing’ practice, rather than trying to shift from negative to positive. The hard parts are there too, noticing the good things when they’re happening in a way to slow down and be present in your life. Sitting with difficult feelings can be super hard, but interestingly, so can being with positive emotions.
2. Embody gratitude as a restorative experience. When you notice a positive emotion or experience, explore what that feels like in your body. Our bodies (nervous systems!) can feel like our energy is stretched to the limit. Really feeling what gratitude feels like in your body can be a powerful experience.
3. Gratitude as a path to value awareness. The things we feel grateful for can give us important clues to what we really value in life. Having greater awareness of our values in a felt-sense way can begin to become a powerful source of guidance in our lives, and help us move towards a life more integrated with our values.
Notice, experience, integrate. An experiential way of engaging with gratitude in a way that feels personal. From a coaching perspective, I’d also suggest to get super curious – what about gratitude resonates with you? Are there aspects of gratitude that you find off-putting? What role has gratitude played in your life? If you engaged with these activities, what felt useful? What would you like to take with you moving forward?
Ultimately, it is your life here, and how you engage with it is personal, and so should your gratitude practices be. That said, let’s not bypass our suffering, but let gratitude be a ‘yes, and…’
