The complexities of gratitude

Happy Sunday, Soothers. This essay is a re-run of an essay I wrote around this time last year, and I hope if it's new to you, it finds you and if it's a re-read, it's a good reminder. 

With Thanksgiving having just taken place here in America, it makes me want to talk about something that I've struggled with for a long time:

Gratitude.

Let's first of course note that the Thanksgiving holiday is a white-washed version of a story that attempts to cover up mass genocide, instead of some magical exchange between colonizers and Native Americans. It's a national day of mourning for many tribes. I like to make land tax payments around this time of year. You can find out whose land we live on by looking on Native Land Digital and then seeing if you can make a donation or land tax.

The other topic that comes up this time of year is the understanding of gratitude. I want to explore why gratitude can be very complicated or even impossible right now for some of us, not from a mind-based perspective but from a nervous system perspective that will hopefully give you some understanding of how and why you work and why you are not selfish or broken if gratitude, real, bone-deep gratitude has ever felt nearly impossible for you, even if you have so much.

Let's start where I always do with these explanations: With me and my story.

I have had plenty my whole life. More than plenty, most times. Enough food, money, good family, warm, safe homes, stability, loving friends, good jobs, an able body, all the things one could ever want. All the privilege a person can be afforded.

And I've been emotionally miserable for much of my life, too. Depression, anxiety, shame, low self-worth, self-flagellation, the loudest inner critic, a mind that just wouldn't quit, and not in a good way, have plagued me, on and off, since my teens.

In the self-help world, a common tactic often advised to try to switch our mindsets is to focus on gratitude. Write 5 things you're grateful for every morning. Write 5 things you're grateful for every night. Stop and pause for gratitude once a day. Be grateful for all the obvious things in your life. Marvel at the running water coming out of your tap. BE GRATEFUL!

Desperate for all the life rafts the self-help world could provide me, I can't tell you how many times I attempted a gratitude practice. Desperate for any relief from my mind and emotions, and, equally, painfully aware that I had "no right" to feel as miserable as I did, given all I had, I scribbled gratitude lists for weeks and months on every surface of paper I could find.

And every single time, the gratitude practice left me feeling flat. Disconnected. It didn't "work." (I did the work, it didn't work, thank you, Lizzo.) I didn't feel better or more grateful after listing all the things I should be grateful for. In fact, sometimes I felt worse after doing the exercises.

And because I was so painfully aware of all the privilege I possessed, how much I had when others had so little, how good materially my life really was, when I would do gratitude practices and feel nothing, and sometimes even feel worse, I would wonder what was wrong with me, why I was so broken, why was I so selfish, and I would be shunted back into the same place I was trying to escape from: the shame spiral.

Now, many years later, I am able on the regular to experience bone-deep, awe-inspiring gratitude. To truly look at a neighborhood tree shedding its leaves and feel a miraculous connection to nature. To think lovingly of my family and friends and feel the depth welling in my heart of how grateful I am for them. To look at my resources, whether they feel full or scarce, and be thankful for whatever is there. I have been known to go into ecstasies of gratitude over my dishwasher. (AND I still struggle with rumination, the inner critic, anxiety, etc. I am a human after all. I'm not flying as high as a grateful kite 24/7).

And how I got here had nothing to do with any fucking gratitude lists.

It had everything to do with my nervous system.

I'm about to give you a very simplified explanation of how this relates, but what I need you to know is that there is a state of the nervous system referred to as Dorsal Vagal Shutdown or the Freeze response. This is the state where shame, despair, hopelessness, numbness, depression, fear, feeling disassociated live.

This is the state that happens when the amygdala is activated due to a detection of a slight threat in the environment (consciously or unconsciously). It is the conditioned fear response, the body’s reflex to an internal or external stimuli from a perceived cue of an original trauma.

And what I have come to realize over the past few years as I've dived into nervous system education is that I was spending a majority of time in Dorsal Vagal Shutdown for probably around 10-15 years.

Yup. You heard that right. YEARS.

After some complex trauma from my late 20s and early 30s, some of which activated some OTHER complex trauma from my teens that I never fully processed or recovered from, I was stuck in the shame /freeze nervous system response for over a decade, and I had no idea.

And THIS is why I couldn't feel grateful.

My nervous system was stuck in a state of immobilization that prevented my body from feeling connected, and no matter how much my mind tried to search out elements of gratitude to feel better, my body wouldn't allow it. Couldn't allow it.

In the aftermath of trauma, our regular patterns of connection are replaced with patterns for protection. We become wired for threat, scanning our environment for cues of danger, ready to respond. And in some cases our body protects us best by putting us into freeze.

After all, freeze is the animal response we all know and see in the stereotypical case of an antelope racing away from a lion. If the lion gets too close or gets its jaws on it, the antelope goes limp, playing dead. It does this unconsciously, by the way. It's the antelope's system, hoping that a play-dead will trick the lion, and if that doesn't work, its system will at least be in a state of numbness so it doesn't have to feel the resulting physical pain.

My body was protecting me in the best way it knew how, by numbing me out, by preventing me from feeling, by freezing me.

And when you feel numb, you know what is really hard to access?

Feelings of connection. Of warmth. Of awe. Of magic. Of love.

Feelings of gratitude.

It wasn't because I was selfish that I couldn't connect with gratitude. It wasn't because I was broken or fucked up. It wasn't because I was self-absorbed or self-obsessed or couldn't see beyond my own nose to realize my blessings.

It was because my system had numbed me out for over a decade to protect me in the best way it knew how.

As I've spent the past few years consciously rewiring my nervous system back into majority Ventral, its state of social engagement, gratitude has slowly but surely re-entered my life.

And while I feel grateful so much more regularly now, I also grieve for the decade where I thought I was the problem.

If this resonates with you, please consider nervous system education, particularly reading up on the freeze response. Deb Dana and Stephen Porges are two amazing researchers and authors who have a lot of beautiful education and tools to share around this. And in Soothe, my mastermind for highly sensitive women that starts in January, we spend an entire month on nervous system education and regulation.

What I can offer you here is that what was most helpful to me to begin to come out of Dorsal was to focus on a regular basis on my five physical senses. Smelling essential oils; feeling cozy under warm blankets; lighting my favorite incense or candles; running freezing cold water over my hands or face; warm baths; gentle stretching on the floor; music that helped me feel inspired or emotional; looking at beautiful nature; cooking a nourishing and tasty meal for myself — all of these helped. Choose one physical sense to mindfully engage in each day if you can. If you've gone numb, this helps your system slowly but surely come back online by re-grounding in the physical world.

And now that I have the know-how, the tools, the education, to be back in Ventral, to feel the connections of life, to once again feel safe to open up my heart, I can say the following with zero irony, with feeling the truth of it so much in my heart, my belly, my body:

Nothing is wrong with you if you are deeply privileged or feel you "have it so good" or have "more than enough" and still feel deeply flat or numb or disconnected or struggle.

Your body and system is doing the best it knows how to keep you safe.

You are a cherished and miraculous person. You always have been and you always will be.

And I am grateful for each and every one of you reading this right now. You will find your way forward.