There’s a truckload of research showing that gratitude can help us reduce stress and boost our wellbeing and levels of life satisfaction. From an energy healer’s perspective, the benefits of practising gratitude come back to the principle that what we are primarily focused on will contribute to what we attract – which means being focused on the many blessings in our lives will help us draw in more blessings.
However, experience has taught me it’s not quite as simple as: positive thoughts = positive results. I would never discourage anyone from practising gratitude – personally it’s something I make a point of doing from time to time, and have experienced great benefits from – but in my experience, it’s not enough on its own to bring through lasting change and deep-level healing. And we can’t overlook the fact that it’s really freaking hard to be grateful when life is not going well – which could end up making you feel like a total failure (not exactly helpful).
So, can gratitude help you heal? The short answer is, yes, but it might not be enough on its own. So if you are finding a gratitude practice isn’t yielding the results you were hoping for, it might be worth taking the following into account:
It’s hard to be grateful when life is not going well
(Photo by Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash )
In my mind, this is one of the greatest hurdles with a gratitude practice. When someone is grieving, for example, or really struggling with their wellbeing, telling them to look for the positives might feel like a bit of a slap in the face. So what I would say to people is, if you are finding it hard to feel grateful right now, don’t force it. Maybe the only thing you can be grateful for right now is that you are alive. Maybe that is enough. Don’t force yourself to feel things that aren’t within reach for you right now. And when you do feel better able to appreciate the beauty in your life, do that. Some days gratitude simply won’t flow for you, and that’s OK – it does not mean you’re doing it wrong.
Gratitude isn’t enough to heal deep issues
As much as gratitude can lighten our energy, help us feel calmer and elevate our mindset over the long term, it doesn’t go deep enough to heal wounding in our energy. For example, if you are struggling to commit to a big career change, practising gratitude for what you have won’t address deep-level issues that may be keeping you stuck, such as low self-worth and confidence, fear of failure and financial fears such as beliefs around scarcity. So it’s important to be aware that gratitude has its limitations – it is not going to exact change and transformation at a deep level.
It’s also not going to address the reasons you might be attracting situations you don’t want. If, for example, you want to attract a healthy relationship but you keep attracting people who can’t commit, gratitude isn’t going to rewrite those blocks and limiting beliefs in your energy that are contributing to that pattern of attracting people who aren’t right for you. (More info about that here.)
(Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash)
Gratitude can be a way of (accidentally) gaslighting ourselves
If you’re in a toxic situation that you need to get out of, it’s possible that gratitude could be masking you from recognising the ugly truth of a situation. Let me give you an example. I have had clients talk to me about romantic relationships that they have outgrown, but they feel unable to leave because their partner is “not a bad person”. I’ve literally had people say to me: “He doesn’t hit me or anything.” And what I always say back is: “That’s a very low bar for relationship satisfaction.” An absence of violence doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is healthy – and it sure doesn’t mean you should be grateful for what you have and just stay in that situation.
What I’m trying to say here is, whatever you do, don’t use gratitude as a means of convincing yourself things are better than they are – it can’t be used to mask the truth of a situation. If something’s not right, it’s not right – and that’s enough of a reason to change it.
(Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash )
The takeaway
Yes, practise gratitude if it’s working well for you – it really can lift your mindset. However, if you are getting stuck with gratitude, or it just isn’t resonating, feel free to go in and out of the practice. I would also recommend examining some of the deeper issues that may be going on in the situation (you may need the help of an objective third party, such as a healer or coach to do this) – chances are, that’s where the healing needs to be done.
If you’d like to work with me to address any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about what I do is available here.