How To Feel Gratitude
even when you really, really don’t want to
Here’s a list of the ways I am loved:
The couch loves me by holding me up.
My car loves me by telling me when it needs oil and gas.
My body loves me by alarming me when I need to get more sleep or eat less salt.
A zucchini loves me by climbing out of the ground, getting in a box, and coming to my house, where it also loves me by waiting in the refrigerator while I try to figure out what to do with it.
My cats love me by gifting me with dead mice and using their purrs to vibrate my pillow.
The world loves my novel by reading it, and by not reading it, too.
The plants love me by agreeing to be half of my breathing.
The rain loves me by falling on my house and also falling on the hillside full of vines.
My sweetheart loves me by being proud of me, disappointed in me (sometimes), and also by rubbing my feet (always).
The headphones love me by singing to me, just me and nobody else.
These are just a few ways that I’m loved by the things around me. By no means do I think that these efforts are the sole aims of rain, zucchini, or my cats — they do not have to do these things, and they are not for doing these things, but they do anyway, and that is love.
Sometimes I think this way when I feel distressed, small, and annoyed; put-upon, fearful, and self-pitying; angry, unloved, you name it. I like to make a list, and I start by looking around at everything I can see and wondering: How does it show its love? This bicycle, this lamp, this cup of decaf coffee? I answer the question over and over again, looking at everything in the room, and I realize that I am surrounded by love. Before I felt alone, and was probably grasping for a strategy to fix this state by conniving approval out of someone. And now I realize that I am in the care of so many beings, it’s hard to keep feeling like a sourpuss.
In my experience, gratitude is difficult to arrive at when it’s something I’m “supposed” to feel. And usually, when you’re feeling bad, some unhelpful person will come along and shame you for it by saying you should be grateful. I have to say, I hate it when people do that. I think it’s a horrible way to respond to someone else’s suffering. As far as I can see, it has never helped anyone.
Of course we should all be grateful — in the sense that it’s a liberated state of mind to be in, and in the sense that the raw materials of gratitude surround us constantly. But approaching anything as a should implies a critique of however you’re already approaching it, and this is unnecessary. Not only is it possible to chose gratitude without also critiquing yourself, it’s way, way easier.
Usually, when you make a gratitude list, it’s just that, a static list of things, people, etc. that you’re grateful for. My couch, my car, my cats, my sweetheart: all go on the list. But tell me, when you read that list, does it feel the same as the list above? Of course not. It’s inert and nonspecific. Every item feels like just that: an item, an object (yes, even the cats and the sweetheart).
I used to try to make gratitude lists in this way and get extremely frustrated with myself. Where was the swell of grace that was supposed to come along with counting my blessings? Why did I still feel sort of dead, why did it all feel so methodical and untrue?
For me, the answer is in animism, the belief that attributes a sense of soul and being to everything non-human.
When I look at the world through an animist lens, I recognize the presence and dignity in everything you encounter. Instead of thinking of it as my hairbrush, my car, my cat, I realize that these things aren’t mine at all; they belong to themselves, and the fact that they’re here with me is a kindness in and of itself.
Instead of thinking, “Well, that’s my cactus — of course it’s sitting where I left it,” an animist worldview has me thinking, “Thank you for being here, cactus.” Which is actually closer to the truth! A deer could have eaten the cactus overnight. A rainstorm could have blown it over. The cactus could stop thriving, for its own invisible reasons, and die away. Acknowledging the livingness of the whole world around me necessarily means deflating the human-centered notion that my expectations ought to be met or exceeded by everything around me.
And that’s where I get my gratitude — my real, non-performative, heart melting gratitude. It changes the world around me into a fascinating, shifting place, a place where it’s difficult to stay so inert and upset.
You don’t have to be an animist, or really care about what any of that means, to enjoy the benefits of this kind of gratitude. Simply ask the question:
How does [insert whatever you’re looking at] love me?
The wonderful thing about questions is that your mind will answer a question even if it doesn’t seem logical to you. So don’t worry if you think this is a little silly, or you can’t relate. Your brain can probably answer it anyway if you get quiet and listen.
I planned on writing a really great year-in-review, but I’ve traveled 6,000 miles (literally) in the last week, and my system is resisting the doing of anything past digestion and coziness (and even the digestion I’ve had to negotiate). I believe in showing up consistently, but I also believe in giving in to one’s own humanity. So, for this week, I’ve posted an article from behind me old Medium paywall—I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it brings you some comfort in this season of mandatory emotion under the guise of “cheer.” Because gratitude is always available, but like any wild thing, it can’t be forced.
Happy hols in whatever way you like or don’t. The light is coming back, even if you can’t tell it yet. XS