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My Mexican grandmother is a beacon of strength, and for many years I have turned to her for advice and support. This is no ordinary woman: She birthed and raised 18 children in a poverty-stricken environment. Hers has been a life of obstacles and adversity, a life that has created within her a deep well of wisdom on which I rely whenever I need guidance.
At 18, I was struggling to figure out my life plan: whether I should go to college, what I should study, what career path I should choose. I confided in her that I was worried about choosing the wrong path and making a mistake. She turned to me and said, “Someday you will know what this life wants from you.”
Her words challenged me to develop a new perspective. They were confusing and thought-provoking because they were at odds with what I’d been taught to believe by my hardworking immigrant parents, namely that I had to choose one career path for the rest of my life, one that should provide me with enough money to buy a home, raise a family, take vacations, and eventually retire so that I could then enjoy my life to its fullest. My focus at that moment was not on what life wanted from me, but on what life would bring to me.
Rather than explore these words further, I dove into my 20s with all of my focus on achieving the things I believed to be important: a college degree, a career, a home, a marriage, a savings account. Like many of my peers, I worked diligently to check off all the boxes on my metaphorical Life To-Do List. I accomplished many of the things on the list, none of which made me immune to emotional suffering. Throughout much of my young adult life, I struggled with feelings of emptiness, despair, and chronic anxiety.
My mom constantly reminded me to be grateful, and to never complain about my life, which was code for, “You have no right to feel depressed or sad.” I repeatedly told myself that I needed to give thanks for everything in my life, and although I was indeed grateful, I often felt as though something was missing. Time and again I would wonder, What if I didn’t have these things? For what would I be grateful?
One morning, I started with my usual routine of expressing gratitude for the things in my life when my grandmother’s words resurfaced in my mind: Someday you will know what this life wants from you. My mind went momentarily blank, and I stopped my practice to explore them further.
I realized that my practice of gratitude had always been focused on outcomes, on the achievements of my life: a home, a career, healthy relationships with friends and family. Never had I explored the mechanisms that had made possible all of these things, and in that moment, I had a profound realization, one that helped me recognize the wisdom in my grandmother’s words.
For many years, I had been giving thanks for what life had brought to me, rather than what life had asked of me and ultimately, what I’d had to deliver in the face of my own adverse experiences: Persistence and determination. Compassion. Kindness. Forgiveness. Above all, love and hope. These things had all been required of me at one point or another; indeed, they had been the mechanisms behind everything I had achieved in my life.
Sitting with this realization and then getting comfortable with expressing gratitude for who I am rather than what I have took a fair amount of time. It was far from easy because I’d never turned the gratitude magnifying glass on myself.
In my clinical therapy practice, clients from all walks of life report feeling guilty for their lack of gratitude for their lives. They berate themselves for failing to be content with their homes, with their families, and with whatever level of financial security they have achieved.
When I ask them to consider all the things about themselves for which they are grateful, I typically get a deer-in-headlights stare that indicates tremendous discomfort, as though they’ve just stepped into uncharted territory, and I’ve asked them to show me the way. “It feels so weird,” they usually say. “I’ve never done that before.”
Have you?
What is it about giving thanks for who we are that feels so difficult, so uncomfortable? Is it unreasonable to explore the idea that we each have something to offer, something of value, something for which we could be grateful? If so, maybe it’s because negative self-talk is territory that feels more familiar. For many of my clients, this relentless voice is an internal bully they just can't seem to shake.
You are a failure. You are so stupid. You can’t do anything right. Your house is not good enough. Your family thinks you're an idiot.
Yet no matter how powerful the internal bully might seem, together we discover and explore all the things that have brought them thus far in life; the things that add value to their lives and to the lives of those around them. Many of my clients have a hard time getting comfortable with the notion that they can give thanks for who they are, but when they do, they report a significant improvement in mood and increased feelings of contentment.
Next time you find yourself giving thanks, after you’ve expressed gratitude for all the tangible things in your life, push past whatever discomfort you might feel and give thanks for who you are and what you offer: your strength, your patience. Your sense of humor, your level of compassion, your commitment to your partner. Your love for your children or your capacity for forgiveness.
Practicing gratitude from the inside out may feel like uncharted territory, but rest assured that in this new space there is simply no room for an internal bully.
