How to cultivate true gratitude

When it comes to gratitude, we know a few things. 

We know it's super good for us. Gratitude can improve our moods and benefit our health and just plain feel amazing. 

You'd think we'd all be spending every day writing massive gratitude lists and focusing intently on how much we have to enjoy.

But we don't. 

And the reason that we don't comes down to one word: should. 

We think we "should" do gratitude. We know it's good for us. We know it works. And yet. We do not do it. Or we do it half heartedly. Or we resent that we "have to" do it. We make gratitude one more thing for us to check off on our to do list. 

And y'all. This is not how gratitude works. 

If you think you "should" feel grateful, you won't. Should strips the joy right out of it. 

A quick google search says that should indicates obligation, duty, or correctness. But here's the thing. Obligation, duty, and correctness do not create gratitude. 

What creates gratitude?

Gratitude is about thankfulness. It's about appreciation. It's about loving what is. Not because it's obligatory or dutiful or correct. 

You can feel grateful for an obligation or a duty or correctness in general. But you can't obligate true gratitude.

That's not how appreciation works. 

In a lot of ways, I think that gratitude flies in the face of the word should. I think that true gratitude is a kind of radical idea. True gratitude is appreciating something or someone as-is. Not because they did or said what we wanted them to (that would be approval, and I do think we get the two confused sometimes). It's just us, appreciating a person or a thing or an event, full stop. 

And when it comes to cultivating true gratitude, I think the key is actually willingness. Willingness to look for something to enjoy. Not because it's good for you or you should. But just because it's fun. It feels nice. Just appreciation for its own sake. 

And y'all. I know that some of you are going to read this and feel guilty. You're going to say, fuck, it turns out I've even been doing gratitude wrong. And I'm going to invite you to decline that thought. I'm going to invite you to say, oh fuck, I could do things differently. 

Not so that you appreciate this newsletter. (It's totally fine if you don't appreciate it at all - you're not required to.) But because gratitude is also about noticing the brain's tendency to focus on the negative and instead bringing it back around to what is working, what is going well, what is good. 

Here's what's true: there's always something that is going well. Always. And finding it and enjoying it feels good. But I don't want you to do these things because you should do them. Like I said, that will strip all the joy out. Instead, I want you to think about doing them just for the sake of doing them.

Broccoli is good for me. But that's not why I eat it. I eat it because I love it. I cook it in a way that tastes delicious to me. And I also enjoy that it's nourishing for my body. Let your gratitude be like that and you'll never have to force yourself to do it again. It will spring naturally from you, and it will feel amazing.